Nick Mass: Under Observation
01.30.26 – 03.07.26
Opening Reception: Friday, January 30, 7-10PM
Under Observation is a portrait series built from isolated segments of the face, photographed on Polaroid Integral film with the Macro 5 SLR. Originally designed for forensic and medical documentation, the Macro 5 SLR offers five fixed close-focus lenses and two powerful flashes on the right and left, allowing extreme precision and intimacy in capturing details of the face. By photographing individual features at varying levels of magnification, the scale and perspective of the faces shift from frame to frame. The resulting composite—assembled using the Polaroid borders as a structural grid—creates a portrait that resists a singular, fixed viewpoint.
The subjects are fellow artists, whose identities shift constantly. Their presence and expression change rapidly from moment to moment, influenced by internal swings, the pressure of public perception, and the ongoing negotiation between honesty in their work and the need not to give all of themselves to others. The tension between anxiety and calm, exposure and acceptance, combined with the tension between artist persona and true self produces disjointedness, with each frame capturing a distinct instant of that multiplicity.
Some portraits within the series appear more structured, their pieces aligning with a sense of order and stability, while others are more fractured and cubist. This variation mirrors daily shifts in personal balance. Certain portraits incorporate subtle nods to the subject’s creative practice—through objects, symbols, or colors tied to their work—while others strip these references away entirely, reflecting the idea of who they are without their work.
By using instant film in a modular, nontraditional way, the series pushes at the medium’s limits while honoring its tactile, analog nature. Each Polaroid is both a self-contained image and part of a larger whole, its surface carrying unrepeatable marks of time and chemistry. The Macro 5 produces a consistent spread failure along the top edge due to uneven roller pressure when adapted to use modern Integral Film, which I have chosen not to fine-tune in order to emphasize self-perceived shortfalls by revealing the photo negative. In this context, defects reveal as much as the images themselves, holding space for imperfection, transformation, and development that define both the artists and the medium.
About the Artist:
Nick Mass is a self-described “Rapper, Painter, Creative, dude” from Buffalo, NY. While his practice spans painting, collage, and video, among other media, he currently focuses on instant photography, curation, and music/performance.
He has had three solo exhibitions in Buffalo, NY, including Puzzles and Pieces, The Heartbreakers, and i got u flowers. As a collaborator, he worked with Silas Rubeck on Vague Questions, an interview series documenting the reactive mind, and with Ryan Huff on ptrish and crackwish*, a series of instant photographs of the two artists in drag looks designed by Huff. During his Hunt Gallery residency, Mass produced the painting series Florals for Kids’ Table.
Musically, his work includes his debut release Cigarette Vending Machine, along with the subsequent music videos supporting the project. As a curator, he organized May Shenk’s first solo exhibition, Muse, as well as multiple group exhibitions focused on individuals’ sketchbooks under the annual title Process. He has also shown in numerous group exhibitions in Buffalo, Rochester, and New York City.
Mass’s New York City solo exhibition debut, Under Observation, was presented at Brooklyn Film Camera in December 2025 before being shown in Buffalo at the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art in January 2026.
Mass studied Fine Art at SUNY Niagara. He is the Facility Manager and a student of BICA School, holds the title of Design Director at The Instant Film Magazine, was a member of Hunt Residencies V, is a two-time grantee of the Generator Fund through the Andy Warhol Foundation, and is a frequent collaborator with the Crucible Art Collective.
