Self-portrait- Artist statement
A self-portrait is far more than a mere photograph of a face or a body; it is a depiction of the personality, the thought processes, and the inner self. It captures the emotions that permeate daily life and the reflections of recent times. It is a visual manifestation of how one confronts their own being throughout the months of creation.
For many years, I refrained from defining my work as a "self-portrait." I felt no need for such a label, assuming that every project of mine was inherently an exploration of the self—as I have always dealt with personal themes and the expression of private thoughts and emotions. However, this current project arises from an urgent need to look inward without intermediaries; no longer observing the world through the self, but rather observing the "I" as the primary subject of research.
The choice to stand "before the mirror"—both physically and metaphorically—has proven to be a demanding act that requires profound emotional resilience. I found myself needing prolonged interludes between shoots, periods of recovery from the exposure, the nudity, and the absolute transparency that this process demands. The photography here is not an act of documentation; it is an attempt to capture elusive emotions: the burden or the stillness of the mundane, and the complexity of the self in recent times.
The decision to utilize the body or the gaze stems from the understanding that emotion is first etched into our physicality—in its movement or its stillness. Yet, the search for the self-portrait has also led me toward the abstract. At times, it is precisely in the absence of the figure—when the photograph becomes a poetic image of thought and feeling—that the most refined portrait of my interiority emerges. It is a process where the self is externalized as visual information, representing the internal landscape.
In this project, I integrate imagery captured both in the studio and outdoors, employing a variety of lenses, some of which introduce physical "vulnerabilities" to the frame (through the use of Diffusion lenses). I combine different applications of the Cyanotype process, utilizing unconventional tones such as browns, which lend the final result a painterly quality rather than that of a classic photograph or solar exposure. This "painterly" essence, born from the exposure to light, is an integral part of unveiling the inner layers of the entire process.