Don't Look Now

An in water submerged portrait surprises the viewer with an intense, almost eery encounter. From under water a woman looks you straight in the eye, Ophelia-like, peaceful but unsettling. The disturbingly beautiful decay of the portrait under water references subtly and unequivocally the transitoriness of being.

Taking portraits I literally go back to the meaning of the word Portrait which descends from the latin word portahere. It translates as to bring something to light. For my analog images the only light source I use is natural day light coming through a window. The images are of a serene
reduction leaving as much as possible to the viewer’s imagination.

In water, the photographic emulsion slowly detaches itself from the paper. The disturbingly beautiful decay of the photographic portrait subtly yet unmistakably points to the transience of both the medium and of being. The material disintegration and the accompanying revelation of the different layers of the photographic emulsion demonstrate that a photograph is not merely an illusionistic representation of reality, but also a material object subject to the laws of physics and, like all things, exposed to decay.

The process of the image’s gradual dissolution thus becomes a narrative in itself, endowing the work with a processual character that renders transience visible as its central theme.