In 2020, the face mask became a thin but mighty shield against a highly contagious virus. Then it became a politicized object, subject to derision and outlandish anger from science deniers. Long before all this, obscuring one’s face was a lot more fun. Think Halloween, Mardi Gras, costume balls. Think comic book superheroes and their cosplay imitators. Spider-Man without his mask is just … Peter Parker. Or maybe Tom Holland.
Masks have been used to disguise identity, whether for entertainment or nefarious purposes, throughout history. The “MassQ” is another, and more recent, story.
In “Daniel Callahan: En-MassQ,” an exhibition at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, the Boston-based multimedia artist presents a different way to alter one’s visage: with paint. His innovation is inspired by face-adorning rituals that have appeared across cultures around the globe for millennia. But the objective of MassQing, Callahan writes, is not to conceal but to reveal — “to bring out what is within.”
A costume might allow the wearer to shed inhibitions, and that can be exhilarating. But MassQing uses the face as a canvas to communicate, both to others and to oneself, something more profound. In other words, covering the face with thoughtful, individualized patterns and colors uncovers the person’s identity and state of being in the moment.
The results are arresting and often quite beautiful.
If there were a god of botany, he would surely look like this.
The exhibition consists primarily of large, full-color digital photographs of painted — or MassQed — faces, all of them somber and gazing directly at the viewer. This seeming eye contact is both unnerving and hypnotic. Most of the portraits were shot against a dark background so that the faces seem to emerge from a shadow place. That’s but one of the metaphors this exhibition calls to mind.
One group of images features Callahan himself in various painted guises. In “Pottery MassQ,” wide horizontal swaths of pink, yellow and blue traverse his face like a passing rainbow. In “Starburst MassQ,” vivid red and yellow diagonal slashes emanate from the top left edge of his forehead.
In “Plant MassQ 1,” Callahan’s entire face is verdant, and narrow, dark green stripes mimic the veins of a large leaf covering one eye. If there were a god of botany, he would surely look like this.
Callahan is an expert at not just painting but posing. In 2011, he spent an entire month painting his face every day. He documented the process and his thoughts about it in photographs, audio, writing and video. Some of this auxiliary material is available via QR codes provided in the gallery. But the dramatic images speak for themselves.
The project grew when Callahan continued it for “Year of the MassQ” with other faces — friends, family members (Mom, Dad and Granny are in the show), and MassQing workshoppers. The “year” never really ended; Callahan still leads occasional workshops, such as with groups of teens. In 2017, he coproduced a MassQ Ball in Boston with the theme of “Convergence.” The event brought together more than 60 artists and celebrated international art, music and culinary traditions. The central element, though, was MassQing. (After a pandemic hiatus, the ball returned in 2022 with the theme of “Origin.”)
The Brattleboro Museum and Callahan are offering a MassQing workshop for the public later this month. Meantime, visitors can design their own MassQ in a self-guided activity at the gallery; paper, markers and instructions are provided. The water-soluble paints that Callahan uses are not.
A period of reflection precedes every MassQing session, Callahan said in an interview. “With someone else, I allow them to tell me about themselves, then I endeavor to create a space of radical vulnerability. The idea is to get a snapshot of where they are right now, what challenges they’re facing, what brings them joy,” he explained. “So I’m able to look at them a long time and not have it be weird.”
Once he begins to envision shapes, lines and colors for his subject’s face, the artist continued, “I try to record what I’m seeing, hearing and feeling. I draft a concept, but the painting changes through the process. I appreciate that level of non-control.”
If MassQing is intuitive, Callahan identifies three incontrovertible elements: identity, communion and change. That is, the face — more than any other part of our anatomy — reflects our sense of who we are and communicates that to others. And our expressions vary according to what we’re experiencing in the moment.
In addition to the still photographs, “En-MassQ” includes a video stream of painted faces in a very large projection on one wall. A few participants “break character,” as it were, flashing a sudden grin or glancing quickly away from the camera. For the most part, though, these MassQers maintain a serious gaze, as if their amplified appearance conferred a fierce solemnity.
“MassQs aim to change the way we look in both senses of the word: how we appear to others and how we gaze upon them in turn,” Callahan writes in an artist statement. “The broader socio-political and racial implications of how we look determine our collective reality.”
Indeed, these photographs might be reminders of the recidivist offenses of racism, but not because most of Callahan’s subjects (including himself) are African American. Rather, it’s that the exuberant hues and designs on their faces elevate the generic expression “people of color.”
Ideally, MassQs might encourage us “to see each other as unique works of art, unified in our collective revealing to each other in the spirit of radical vulnerability, celebration and reverence,” the artist adds.
Callahan considers art-making a spiritual practice, and a powerful one. That might be why he’s recently committed himself to making art full time, after five years of teaching film and video at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He also stepped down as president of the Roxbury Cultural District — one of seven such areas in Boston designated as living repositories of distinctive art and culture.
“It’s through my work that I’m able to commune with my reality at a meaningful level,” Callahan said. “I’ve given myself the space, time and energy to devote to my artistic career and practice.”
Now, he said, he’s immersed in the development of a one-man show. It furthers the concept of his feature film Come On In, which Callahan made for his master of fine arts degree at Emerson College in 2016. “It’s about a man who is going through a crisis and is presented with an opportunity to either deal with it or go insane,” he explained.
Chances are, the man deals with it by making art the cornerstone of his life.
The original print version of this article was headlined “True Colors | With the face as canvas, Daniel Callahan’s “MassQs” reveal what lies beneath”
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This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2023.
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