Make a normal face

Random and wrong photos are the topic of Anna Afonina’s research. The artist takes photos that we used to delete or throw away and draws our attention to them. Faces blurred, leaving the frame, close each other. Could a modern man see and understand his image, while looking at himself through the camera phone? Images are superimposed on each other in memory, replaced by new ones and blur our ideas about ourselves. At the same time, these photos are not always visible only to us, posting a large number of selfies or photos in Instagram or Facebook users show their ideas about the visual aesthetic. And here lies the line between bad and good photography, built and random frame becomes quite inseparable: what is beautiful and pleasant to one is unacceptable for the another, what seems to one expression of himself, for another would be artificial structures.

Anna Afonina doesn’t present photographic material directly, but translates it into the field of painting. Portraits are made in oil on canvas. Instant photography, which is quickly created and quickly disappears from our actual space, turns into a picture – the media that we interpret as significant and important through its man-made nature and durability. Non-randomness of chance, irregularity and flaws that we prefer to hide, on the contrary, are the manifestation of life and individuality, which is very symptomatic in modern society.                    

Marina Alvitr