subject echo: in inky dark water

today i was struck by the subject echoes in some of Esther Teichmann's and Yann Orhan's work:

two images by Teichmann, from her project "Viscosity:"

and two from Orhan's project "Nos Vies Invisibles:"

inward bound

i wanted to follow up on Esther Teichmann's series Viscosity with some new work of hers. i saw the project Inward Bound posted up on her page at the University of Brighton, where she lectures.

i suppose it's no surprise that these caught my eye, because i've been noticing that images of the human form confronting representations of the natural environment pop up again and again in the projects that i post here on Subjectify.

in these photographs, that confrontation is pretty direct. the title "Inward Bound" lends the project an air of introspection or philosophical nature-loving — it comes off as a bit New Agey to me, but in absense of an artist's statement i'm not sure how she is envisioning the project. i wonder if the photos would be perceived differently with a different title (the thorny Question of project titles raises its head again...).

i wouldn't be surprised if some of the subjects above are the same ones featured in Viscosity and her more recent project Silently Mirrored. from what i've seen of Teichmann's work, she is keen on revisiting themes of memory, family and loss—and she believes in getting deep under her subjects' skin.

viscosity

when i posted about Ethan Aaro Jones' series In Water, i hadn't yet seen Esther Teichmann's 2003-2004 series Viscosity. the two projects have similar composition, but the photos in Viscosity are blacker and seem more menacing. the idea for the project came out of Teichmann's childhood memories of night swims in a German lake surrounded by forest.

of her attraction to photography, Teichmann says "it fascinates me that a medium can simultaneously seem to be so close to reality yet be so unrelated to the real."