In Camera Gallery, in Paris, presents The unknown (2016-2018), the last series of Andrea Torres Balaguer.
Andrea Torres Balaguer, born in Barcelona in 1990 submits Large formats matt colored portraits to the question of identity and impose herself in front of the lens. “I search for a very special mystery,” explains Andrea Torres Balaguer. “An ambiguity that transcends photography, something that includes the spectator, that captures him or her. I like to give things new meanings. My work has always been linked to feminity and symbolism. I have a feeling of a rendering of my identity in female characters, they are not me, they have something of me.”
For the unknown, her last series realised in 2017-2018, the spanish artist has thoughts about the «concept of identity and the importance of identity when portraiture is evoked. She went further and staged herself. Why? Because she felt the absence of a face masked by a brush stroke directly on the picture very agressive: not only did I steal the identity of the model but applied paint that conceal the face. “This is why I decided to make self-portraits, and suddenly there was a new meaning: I lost my identity, and became what the onlooker wants me to be. From then on I have multiple identities, save my original identity.”
They are eloquent portraits, majestic self-portraits that express both force and retraint with much refinement. One can see there too a form of resistance to the classic narcissism of self-portraits as if it was a fault to look at oneself doing nothing. Hence this astonishing brush stroke that chop off the head in a way that is energic, revolutionary. A calligraphic link between painting and photography.
Brigitte Ollier
Brigitte Ollier worked for 30 years as a photography critic for Libération and is now an independent writer.
Andrea Torres Balaguer, The unknown
May 31st – July 31st, 2018
in camera Galerie
21 rue Las Cases
75007 Paris
