False Front, 2021
Digital collages
The series of digital collages "False Front" was inspired by the 18th-century realism portraits and contemporary identity issues. The muted faded colors imply increscent anxiety of exposure. Veil camouflages identity much as social media do nowadays. The coverage conceals us and drowns under the weight of overlays.
The color palette in the collages is purposefully reversed from the classical 18th-century color palette. The colors are the opposite of the limited color spectrum of the traditional portraits. The way those colors interact with each other is emphasized by intentionally making them not coherent. All the parts of the costumes in classical portraits are perfectly color-matched within themselves and the environment, in this series the characters are dressed in harsher costumes and the way color combines in the clothing items are purposefully contrast to each other and background, as well as being the opposite of those colors in classical paintings.
The distinction from the classical paintings enhances in the chosen poses. They are as emphatic as in old paintings but less formalistic. The people in portrait painting seem to be frieze in time and completely firm and standing straight like sculptures. Despite that characters in the series have a sculptural appearance in them, the poses aren’t stationary, they are much more dynamic.