Larger than Life

Photographer Ken McFarlane created the “Larger than Life” portraits responding to the Dr. J mural by Kent Twitchell (1990) at 1234 Ridge Avenue, a mural that has served as a landmark for McFarlane’s life and work in Philadelphia. In this work he depicts Philadelphia-native Erik Honesty II, a teenager who McFarlane has photographed along with his father over many years. By putting Erik Honesty II in dialogue with the scale of the Dr. J. mural, the artist is exploring the role that fashion, style and youth can play in how power functions in society.

Ken McFarlane is a West Philadelphia based documentary and portrait photographer. He has over 20 years experience in commercial, editorial, documentary photography and filmmaking. His current body of work focuses on producing visual and audio histories of Philadelphians in the present as a means of documentation to preserve collective memory while encouraging future generations to remember, re-examine and realize their own potential.

This work was part of Power Map: Historic Mural Activations, a series of five commissioned events, performances and workshops activating murals created in Mural Arts Philadelphia’s first 20 years (1984-2003) that depict power and empowerment. Five diverse figurative murals served as the starting point for an exploration of the history of their creation and the neighborhood change that the murals have witnessed. They also offered a prompt for thinking about how power is depicted in public art today and in the recent past. Featured artists include Mark Strandquist & Courtney Bowles with Tripod, Studio 22 (Nasheli Juliana Ortiz, Marién Vélez and Lorna Mulero), Eva Wǒ, Marie Alarcon and Ken McFarlane. This project has been developed on the occasion of MAP’s 35th anniversary by guest curator-in-residence Daniel Tucker.

See Larger Than Life as part of Mural Art Philadelphia’s Power Map: Historic Mural Activations