The portrait on the left depicts well-dressed American Ambassador Wilkins standing confidently, and slightly listless, in front of his Rockcliffe Park mansion. In the photograph on the right, Yvon, shirtless and heavily slouched, stands in a crumbling parking lot on the edge of a manicured city. While Wilkins stares outside the photo frame, Yvon is bound by a shadowed environment.
The portrait of Yvon is part of a formal series called USER, Portraits of Crack Addicts, whereas the one of Wilkins belongs to a (less formal) grouping of photographs that depict the political and social elite of Ottawa.
One of the photographs is taken at night, the other during the day. Both of the full-length portraits are of men who frequent Ottawa’s Lowertown: one from behind the fenced embassy of the United States and the other in front of the boarded up buildings on the corner of Cumberland and Murray Street.
Both portraits were taken by Tony Fouhse, an Ottawa-based photographer.
Tony Fouhse, David Wilkins, American Ambassador to Canada (2005 to 2009), 2009, inkjet print, collection of the artist.
Tony Fouhse, Yvon, from the series USER, Portraits of Crack Addicts, 2007, inkjet print, collection of the artist.
