TOMMY KHA, I’M ONLY HERE TO LEAVE, 2015-PRESENT

“I’m Only Here to Leave – a phrase taken from a conversation Kha had when he met performance artist and musician Genesis P-Orridge – started out as a series of cardboard cutout images of the photographer’s face and body, which he placed into ­real-world surroundings. The series evolved out of another personal project that saw Kha photograph cutouts of Elvis Presley, a subject close to his heart after growing up a stone’s throw away from his Graceland estate. “It started out with the Elvis cardboard cutout essentially as this weird ancestor, and then morphing into my own image and using my own body as a material and prop,” he says.

In another twist, all of the props seen in I’m Only Here to Leave are drawn from Kha’s existing (mostly unseen) archive of self-portraits. Viewing the existing image and the image he is trying to create as part of a bigger puzzle then allows him to piece the two together on set.” - Creative Review