EXHIBITIONS
She is lost
2021
Photoport
The title of the exhibition is derived from part of the text in the book The Second Sex by the writer
Simon De Beauvior. It is the part, which reveals a stereotype about a woman, that is no longer what
she used to be.
"Woman is losing her way, woman is lost."
The sentence is a reaction to the seemingly declining femininity from the point of view of patriarchal society; This sentence grabbed my attention to the point, that I want to show losing of oneself as a parallel to gender issues of femininity in my paintings.
In addition to thinking about how to grasp the subject, I worked with the Phototrap device, which is usually used for observing animals in the wild by hunters or foresters. The device consists of a small camouflaged water-resistant box with lenses. It works on the same principle as digital cameras, but with added features such as motion detector, night vision, recording or capturing images at a specified time.
On this device, of course, it is possible to set the time interval after detecting the motion, then Phototrap captures a given object, but at the same time the given moment of capture is unpredictable – in comparison to a classic camera, with Phototrap the control of manipulation is lost. It can be said that to some extent it is also a coincidence of capture.
In a sense the women in my paintings are situated in the positions of animals, they are caught up in an unexpected moment, they represent a kind of trophies - their images are a testament to the presence or existence in a figurative sense.
The place where the author's images were created is the environment of the forest, the realm where these women can move in the evening, after they have already been excluded from (male) public space. The night shooting of naked women in the woods enhances the surreptitiousness – the overlooking of these women.
The creation of photographs through Phototrap is a metaphorical expression of observation from the position of voyeurism, surveillance and a certain control. The photographic device itself is disguised to merge in a natural environment to convey a movement that represents intimacy, and by illuminating it through the photograph, this space is revealed, similar to the nudity of the actors and the vulnerability of women at the same time.
Curator of the exhibition :
Mgr.art Matúš Novosad
https://flashart.cz/2021/10/25/anna-maria-benova/
https://www.photoport.sk/je-stratena
"Woman is losing her way, woman is lost."
The sentence is a reaction to the seemingly declining femininity from the point of view of patriarchal society; This sentence grabbed my attention to the point, that I want to show losing of oneself as a parallel to gender issues of femininity in my paintings.
In addition to thinking about how to grasp the subject, I worked with the Phototrap device, which is usually used for observing animals in the wild by hunters or foresters. The device consists of a small camouflaged water-resistant box with lenses. It works on the same principle as digital cameras, but with added features such as motion detector, night vision, recording or capturing images at a specified time.
On this device, of course, it is possible to set the time interval after detecting the motion, then Phototrap captures a given object, but at the same time the given moment of capture is unpredictable – in comparison to a classic camera, with Phototrap the control of manipulation is lost. It can be said that to some extent it is also a coincidence of capture.
In a sense the women in my paintings are situated in the positions of animals, they are caught up in an unexpected moment, they represent a kind of trophies - their images are a testament to the presence or existence in a figurative sense.
The place where the author's images were created is the environment of the forest, the realm where these women can move in the evening, after they have already been excluded from (male) public space. The night shooting of naked women in the woods enhances the surreptitiousness – the overlooking of these women.
The creation of photographs through Phototrap is a metaphorical expression of observation from the position of voyeurism, surveillance and a certain control. The photographic device itself is disguised to merge in a natural environment to convey a movement that represents intimacy, and by illuminating it through the photograph, this space is revealed, similar to the nudity of the actors and the vulnerability of women at the same time.
Curator of the exhibition :
Mgr.art Matúš Novosad
https://flashart.cz/2021/10/25/anna-maria-benova/
https://www.photoport.sk/je-stratena
