To mark the release of her new monograph Artist and her model (Le Caillou Bleu), Elina Brotherus has put a few of her self-portraits on display at the Galerie Voies Off.
“I’m 40 years old now. Since my early photographs, more than 15 years ago, I have used myself as a model. It’s a strange feeling to look back at the work done and to look at the young person I used to be. I am living now what was an unknown future for her. What has happened, what has changed? The apartments, the boyfriends; the face has grown older. The aesthetics of my photography have, nevertheless, remained the same. It’s surprising to realise though, that all of a sudden I’m no longer the youngest one in group shows. At my age my parents were already dead. My health degrades, like for many friends of my age. Some have passed away. I guess all these morbid thoughts led to the idea of this book. I didn’t want it to be “just the fourth monograph”. It’s important to juxtapose images of different times for comparison – investigating age, questioning what we are at a certain moment, where do I see myself now. I wish to show the time warp from 1996 to 2011, to show the line that continues through the work, and to look at the young Elina with a certain amusement, yet with tenderness.”
Elina Brotherus, born in 1972 in Helsinki, Finland, is a photographer and video artist. Her earliest work presented subjective but universal experiences, the presence and absence of love. In her next series, The New Painting, introduced geometric landscapes and studies of the human figure, Brotherus studied photography’s relationship with art history and found inspiration in the iconography of classical painting. Her current work focuses on the relationship between the human figure and the landscape, and on the way an artist looks at her model.
Elina Brotherus
From July 3rd to September 28th, 2012
Galerie Voies Off
26 ter rue Raspail
13200 Arles
