Medicated: Richard Kern

“My name is Faye and I’m 18. I take 15 mgs of Adderall extended release. I started taking them last year when I was 17. I’ve always had like problems in school, behavioral problems, and I’ve had problems in class… but I was on my last year of high school so—I was doing really badly so my mom and I thought that we should like finally go to a psychiatrist and get something for me to like push me through. Like it wasn’t the most intense examination he was like so- if I didn’t have this problem I could still go in and lie about it. Like I just told him what was wrong with me and he just prescribed me something. Like I could’ve been lying. I said that I can’t pay attention in class, I’m really disorganized, and I also went to him for anxiety too, cause I have really bad anxiety, and I feel like my attention and anxiety go like hand in hand.”

Richard Kern, photographer and filmmaker remains, first and foremost, a portraitist. For more than two decades Kern has sought to unravel and illuminate the complex and often darker sides of human nature. Kern makes the psychological space between the sitter, photographer and audience his subject.