P.O.P. Portraits
A video still captures the profile silhouette of a customer, printed at Walmart on thermal receipt paper. This occurred after Matt Kenyon altered rolls of receipt paper and discreetly placed them in the machines.
P.O.P. Portraits
Every trip to a big-box retailer like Walmart isn’t just a transaction—it’s an exchange of personal data. P.O.P. Portraits confronts this reality by transforming a seemingly mundane artifact: the receipt. While receipts traditionally document purchases, this piece reveals their hidden role as a record of corporate surveillance. Using specially altered receipt paper, the artist replaces the standard itemized list with haunting portraits of customers captured by in-store surveillance cameras. These faces are rendered in the text and values of the customer’s own purchases, forcing them to confront the unsettling relationship between their shopping habits and the way corporations profile and monitor them.
P.O.P. Portraits highlights the reductive lens through which retailers view their customers: as mere patterns of consumption. By exposing these covert practices, the work challenges the comforting illusion of cheap goods, reminding us that in the world of retail, nothing comes without a cost.
Note: Each frame was individually printed using a risograph printer, then carefully scanned to create the final sequence. The process emphasizes the tactile, imperfect qualities of risograph printing—vibrant colors, subtle misalignments, and layered textures—bringing a distinct physicality to the animation. The result is handcrafted and where each frame becomes a unique print in motion.