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Nick Hallett reimagines portraiture through sound sculptures that capture human presence without relying on facial imagery. The composer and artist’s first gallery solo show in New York will present multichannel audio works which comprise sonic portraits of four poets: Wayne Koestenbaum, Pamela Sneed, Kyle Dacuyan, and Penny Arcade. Accompanying the installation are four visualizations derived from spectrograms of each subject’s voice.
Hallett’s work is guided by the question “Can human likeness be conveyed by the voice alone?” To create each portrait, Hallett records the subject in a relaxed, informal setting, inviting them to bring poems and songs. He begins with vocal warm-up exercises, then records the subject reading, singing, and engaging in casual conversation. The entire session becomes source material for a multichannel audio composition, or a sonic object understood as a collage constructed from the voice.
On the gallery walls are four visual works that translate the voices into physical form.