When looking at portraits, we are invited to inspect every little line, crease and hair. We are free, even encouraged, to observe in a way we are socially prohibited from in everyday life. We can empathise, scrutinize, and create stories in our minds of who these people are. We might be intrigued, curious, or even judgemental.



But what happens when the face we are so intimately viewing stares, unapologetically, right back at us? All of a sudden we are no longer the one in command. Unexpectedly we feel like a voyeur who has been caught out.



In this book, based on the Exhibition, Staring Back, it is this strange emotional mixture of being invited to look, while feeling perhaps we shouldn’t, Kim Ayres encourages us to explore.