Portrait (2024)

Black and white photograph on silver gelatin paper

80x120cm

In the diptych Portrait (2024) and Self-Portrait (2024), the artist uses two distinct gestures to depict the process of mourning and the feeling of loss.

For the artist, mourning is a dual process - quiet and private, yet monumental and all-encompassing - which she expresses through the gesture of photography. In Portrait (2024), by overexposing the photographic negative, she disrupts the narrative typical of the medium, making it impossible to clearly see the person in the photograph - the subject of mourning. The details of the photograph become visible only when viewed up close. The resulting blackness of the work, combined with the size of the format, reflects the duality of mourning described above - existing somewhere between the silent and the monumental.

In contrast to the mourning process, the subjective feeling of loss is expressed by the artist through the gesture of writing. She perceives loss as pervasive - dramatic, violent, and akin to a childish cry - which she conveys in Self-Portrait (2024) through an excerpt from the fantasy book The Last Unicorn (1968), cut into the wall. The content of the excerpt, which speaks explicitly about the violence and drama of facing death, is amplified by the artist's act of hand-carving the text directly into the pillar.

The diptych was created as part of the 1st-year curriculum of the ALUO Master's program in Photography, under the mentorship of Professor Peter Rauch, with technical assistance from Peter Fettich.