About the creation of the print series (M)ysteria City (e)Scapes 1-12

Years ago when I lived in London I passed by a mirrored window. As I looked in passing I gasped out loud with surprise as I saw my face. I saw a feminine and somewhat pretty face within a surrounding space which stood in sharp contrast to how I felt on the inside. Firstly, I was never able to see an image of my face on the inside of my mind, as if I could not memorise or recognise the person other people would see, and I had gotten used to feeling a kind of erasure of the characteristics others would recognise me by. Seeing my face and body in the reflection and ‘in-between space’ of the real and the reflected gave me a space to work with something intangible in a kind of embodied way. 

In (M)ysteria I have used the technique of painting with ink on paper in a composition of an organic grid, photography and digital application of scanning, cropping and superimposing various images. These works are developed on the background of my written work WE ARE TIME to be Human, which delves deeply into issues embedded in using the fragment, issues around identity in correlation with trauma, and last creation in connection with time - past-present-future. That being said, my written work is mostly developed from an architectural or spatial experience such as the idea of blueprints, sketched within a coordinate system, thus playing with various mathematical formulas that I have come upon through my studies of space, philosophy and psychoanalysis and applying these with my intuition and imagination..

The paintings and the knot work were based on mapping. Mostly I map a fragment of a place, ruins in particular attract my imagination and connect to my experience of having a body in ruin, or I aim through the repetition of gestures at mapping the passing of time. The coordinate system is core to my understanding of composition, of my physical understanding of being, movement and time. 

The superimposition of the figure in reflection onto an image of a real painting is about merging something intangible with a reflection of that which is most tangible - of that which is intangible, one’s identity - including the surrounding environment, interiors and exteriors of architectural spaces of all sorts. Seeing oneself immersed in this as pure form away from the specific identity is exhilarating and points to the possibility of a fluidity of being itself, which is mimicked through an exploration of liquid paint and how it shapes into pools while tending to the strict borders of the grids, folding onto graph paper reminiscent of wrinkled skin.

Most work begins with the unseemly. Something is jotted down, either in writing, through drawing or accidental material experimentations. Something in my eye or brain observes this as if from above and links various elements which I notice because of an initial feeling of satisfaction. As I begin to put these elements into systems of arranged frameworks, I begin to see the possibility of something larger than satisfaction, something deeper and meaningful. Meaningful to me is a constellation of something of the world, nature or culture and personal experiences. Together their new connection satisfy in me that which loves to research and learn new stuff, that which balances the elements in ways that are not straightforward or immediately comprehensible, and that which I feel could be present as something beautiful, interesting, useful for others.

This body of work takes using photography to a new formal level and further into the finished work than I have ever wanted to before. To me, the visceral and material investigation and shaping of form and content is important. Photography - the way I use it - despite its allure and pendant for aestheticism easily feels too disposable. I use only the snapshot version not because I am lazy, but because it surprises me, And even if I never really got to understand the relationship between aperture and time, the technical preparation inherent in most organised photographic work gets in my way and kills the moments. Plus, I think I find love towards that which feels disposable: the quick moment catching something in movement - fleeting. That being said, working with superimposition is no small feat. It demands much more of a specific technical expertise than I have had to execute in previous works and adds a figurative layer, something completely intangible and unpredictable when overlaying a reflection image onto another, i.e. a  grid of red. That transient moment suddenly embodied with potential in what I do is what I live for.

Last, I don’t see the image as solely self portraits. The person could be (of) anyone, why I invite you, dear Reader, to contact me should you wish to commission a portrait from me in the line of (M)ysteria - contact details here.

Best wishes,

Camilla Howalt