Stilalife

 

Genre:            drawing series

Material:        graphite on paper

Dimensions: 29 x 20 cm
Production:   2016



The cycle explores the limits of our visual perception mechanisms.

In a self-experiment, I investigate the smallest possible semiotic unit – essentially, how much a visual context must dissolve before our perceptual capacity loses its sense of certainty and slips into a state of irritation. This work challenges the viewer to engage in a distinct form of seeing: what I call “naive seeing.”

My source material consists of Vanitas still lifes from the Dutch-Flemish painting tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries. I alienate these references through image rotation and intentional blurring.

Even if familiar motifs and cultural knowledge continue to inform the reception of the traced images, the drastically reduced visual information fragments create a space for new semiotic recompositions. The resulting works – whether landscapes, figures, or indeterminate spaces – appear as open-ended visual processes. They are gestures of perceptual unfreezing, inviting the viewer into a state of self-surprise.