The background for the project was a research report which through studies had concluded that men were at their lowest level mentally (read: most depressed) at the age of 43.8 (average). When the artist started on this project, he was close to 43.8. The report provided the inspiration for a series of photos portraying a man of this age; in section and full figure. The pictures give an emptiness and self-assurance in relation to the theme, at the same time as it provides an interesting contrast in terms of the life a Norwegian (western man) lives, in relation to the life men live in large parts of the rest of the world.
In Domaas' charcoal drawings, he works a lot with stencils. This gives him a special opportunity to create repetitive motifs. The juxtaposition of "similar" motifs gives strength to the theme. Furthermore, Domaas thinks as a whole in relation to all the images in a series - so that they communicate with each other - and form a story, or fragments of a story. For many years he has worked with coal on thick cotton paper. In this project, he looks, among other things, at the contrast / interaction in the paper's texture against the texture in the material being drawn.
