Ted Mayer

Los Angeles based artist created a few projects about scars. After doing a lot of art work about his own condition he decided to look a bit further and look at other people’s stories. For over 16 years’ artist has been creating a beautiful body of work of scars in project called “Scarred for life”. The project continuous to grow and now consists of almost 100 artistically enhanced mono-prints taken directly from the scarred skin of his subjects. Each image is accompanied by the photographic portrait and written story.  

The next project that he is doing is focused around veterans and their scars, he reveals the impact that these injuries had on subject lives and others as well. Same as the project before artists does mono-prints of the scars, just this time he also paints some small drawings on the scar print explaining how subject got the scar. The prints are also accompanied by portraits and for the first time documentary film as well, which allows for each person to tell their individual stories, detailing the specifics of how they got the scar, the journey of recovery and how they are living with it now.  

The mono-prints are very interesting and feel personal as they are taken direct from the skin. Without the photo of person, it would be impossible to understand where the scar is on the body, which I think makes the project more interesting, because you spend more time looking at the scar and analyzing every line.











A short video about how The Mayer works: