Fading away
Maria Gvardeitseva
Glass, Dry leaves, 3D Printing, Silicone,
99 photos
London, UK
2023
In this work, the artist rethinks the genre of death masks, and, considering divorce as an initiation, as a mini-death, offers a composition of silicone masks. Divorce is often stigmatized in traditional culture, and the blame for the breakdown of a romantic relationship often falls on the woman. Instead of the genre of self-portrait, the artist offers a form that is hybrid, flexible even in the format of its realization. Her task is to capture the part of her identity that is slipping away and dying as a result of divorce, to capture it in the format of a mask. At the same time, the author considers the recognition of one’s partial death as a process of disposing of one's own stigma. Unlike the traditional approach to making a mold, where the form is taken directly from the face, the artist used AI to create a scan of her face. The mask is essentially a scan, but at the same time it is not a copy; it is only an AI representation of the facial landscape. The technology requires 99 photographs to be uploaded from different angles, and the process of self-study becomes a separate artistic process. In the era of facial masks, beautification and the seductive ease of self-improvement through technology, the artist is going the opposite way - accepting and studying herself at any angle, attractive or ugly.
This work is a part of the 5-Minutes Bedtime Stories project by the artist.
