{"id":751,"date":"2018-04-26T13:48:55","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T13:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/dev\/?p=751"},"modified":"2018-06-26T15:21:36","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T15:21:36","slug":"surreal-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/?p=751","title":{"rendered":"Surreal Portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magdalena Taber
\nEyemazing<\/a>\u00a0issue 04, 2006\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Magdalena Taber\u2019s story is that of a young girl who climbs trees an, looks at the horizon and wonders, \u201cWhat lies beyond this line? What is it that I can\u2019t see?\u201d German citizen, born and raised in Poland, now residing in Boston, the US, Magdalena has, several times in her life, crossed barriers of language, culture and, lately, of professional activities. Though drawn to create since a very early age, she first chose to dedicate herself to exact sciences. Working in the biomedical field for a long time she would go to hospitals, look into the personal records of patients and see life through the lens of a microscope. It soon became clear to her that life could not be pinned down, that it is a mystery that both science and art approach in thier own complementary way. In the year 2002 she decided to fully dedicate herself to her passion, photography. And yet, for Magdalena, this decision didn\u2019t entail such a break. After all, to make art was not unlike proceeding to scientific experiments since \u201cboth science and art require discipline and imaginative thinking.\u201d Maastering digital techniques and always remaining alert for each and every bit of unexpected harmony, she trusted her intuition and started to create her own world, one that speaks about \u201cthe magical aspects that are universal and present in all human beings beyond space and time.\u201d<\/p>\n

This humanistic endeavour, however, didn\u2019t at first tempt her into photographing people. She would recognize a face or a human shape in the patterns formed by inorganic matter. In a fashion similar to Slavador Dali\u2019s Paranoid Critical Method, it is the whole world that seemed to have become the projection screen of Magdalena\u2019s own mind. A cabbage had transformed into a voluptuous woman and a drop of paint into a simple smile. She says, \u201cI think I didn\u2019t have the courage to look at human nature or at a human facer directly, partially because of my fear to interfere in the privacy of other people.\u201d When she speaks, Magdalena is the antithesis of the masculine stereotype of the portrait photographer. She is not hunting for spectacular images, the ones that cast the inner self of others as exotic specimens to fantasize with.<\/p>\n

And yet, fea years ago, Magdalena\u2019s curiosity was drawn to the image of her hand that appeared on her computer screen as a result of her holding up a prop on top of her scanner. Magdalena\u2019s discovery of the graphic effect of scanning gave way to a first series \u2013featuring her hands. Yet, this wasn\u2019t enough and, after finding out whether the properties of the scanner\u2019s light would be of any harm to human eyes, she decided to lay her own faace on the flat surface. With Magdalena\u2019s self-portrait, Etched in Memory, the Surreal Portraits series was born. With its eerie atmosphere that reminds one of Symbolism and 19th century daguerreotypes, Magdalena has produced a work that \u201cgoes beyond specific religious, nationalistic and social conditions and that is not limited to a specific time in history.\u201d Surreal Portraits are not about faithfully recording the peculiarities of a model\u2019s appearance. \u201cMy ultimate goad,\u201d comments Magdalena, \u201cis transcendence; it is to extract something more universal that we can all relate to on a deeper level.\u201d That\u2019s also the reason for her to say, \u201cI feel rather ambivalent about calling the images of the Surreal series \u2018portraits.\u2019 They do not represent the persona of the models in a traditional way, they form collective portraits.\u201d Indeed, the images from the series result from a conjunct practice, one that involves the models, their self-perception and Magdalena\u2019s subsequent digital manipulations.<\/p>\n

In fact, Magdalena doesn\u2019t actually photograph the models; she scans them. Or rather, they scan themselves guided by Magdalena\u2019s advices and by their own sense of satisfaction looking at the images rendered immediately on the computer screen. \u201cThe scanner was not designed to record any 3D objects, says Magdalena, and using it like that results in certain subtle distortions in the proportions of facial features. For instance, any movement during the scan adds a \u2018wavy\u2019 effect to the image.\u201d The models scan their face over and over again till they produce an image that suits their expectations. \u201cit is a fascinating process to go through with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a second time, the scan portraits are used as matrxes for creating works of invention. Props are added, discplaced and transformed. Colors are subtly brought in. Everything proceeds according to Magdalena\u2019s intuition, which sets in motion each and every element of the digital composition nd ultimately signals its completion by leaving her with a feeling of fulfilled harmony. \u201cThe final image reveals itself slowly, or arrives suddenly with a striking power.\u201d The titles complete this process by adding yet other layers of meaning to the images. \u201cIt takes me a lot of time coming up with the right title, which feels right when I look at the image. I just wait for it to appear in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together, Magdalena\u2019s images form a \u201cfield of possibilities,\u201d as she likes to qualify her own work. To the resulting image from her \u201cactively passive\u201d creative process, we might want to surrender \u2013in \u201ca joyful abandonment\u201d that invites us to recognise ourselves in others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magdalena Taber\r\nEyemazing\u00a0issue 04, 2006\u00a0","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eyemazing","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinesomze.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}