Fisionomia is about the attraction and repulsion that is evoked by the human body. By dissecting, magnifying and dislocating the body,  I render it anonymous, strange and explore the issue of identification of the body with the self.

The “mirror stage” according to the French psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan is the first stage in the formation of identity. Between the age of six and eighteen months the infant experiences his body as fragmented and dispersed. When the child recognizes himself in the mirror, he creates an ideal self-image and creates an imaginary physical control, which he has yet to attain. At this moment, the body is marked out as a unified totality, complete and whole.  In contrast to this conception, my work represents the body as a vital chaotic force that is excluded from the false control, unity, identity and perfection of the ‘mirror stage’.

I introduce strangeness and unfamiliarity where a mirror image is expected, in order to obscure an anticipated pleasure of ideal reflection. By fragmenting the body, I suggest the coexistence of binary oppositions such as inside/ outside, male/ female, I/ otherness.  This  fragmentation also interrupts the viewer’s automatic response of identification with the body and forces him to reconstitute his own perception.