Artist Statement
Meet Kevin
Kevin Vargas(b.2001) is a Chicago based photographer, whose work explores shadow, Urban space, and the presence of self through everyday environments. working primarily in black and white photography, Kevin uses the use of high contrast, grain, and architectural form to transform everyday environments into emotional spaces. Kevin creates photographs that feel quiet, tense, and introspection. His work reflects an ongoing process of self-realization as both an artist and a person. Each image becomes a way of testing perception, documenting presence, and finding meaning in overlooked spaces. Through this practice, Kevin not only uses photography not only to record the world, but to question how he moves through it. Kevin is a third year undergrad student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
My work primarily consists of black and white film street photography and colored street photography. I am interested in how ordinary spaces can hold memory, emotion, and silence. Many of my images focus on buildings, streets, shadows, and empty spaces that people pass by everyday. Through photography, I try to make these familiar places feel strange, quiet, and worth looking at for a longer period of time. Most of my images are taken at night, when buildings are typically empty. I use this emptiness in my photos as a metaphor for the feelings someone might experience when feeling alone. A lot of my earlier work explored isolation through empty buildings and spaces. I often take photos at night because buildings feel different when they are not being used. Photography allows me to capture the past while also showing how memory can change the way we see the present. A building during the day can feel active, social, and ordinary, but at night it can feel distant, silent, almost abandoned.