Liz Gorman

“All photographs are a memento mori,” wrote Susan Sontag.

 

The critical tradition has always emphasized what has been called the “thanatic effect” of photography; however, this intimate relationship between image and death dates back to the birth of the portrait and the very idea of visual representation. In his study Life and Death of the Image: A History of the Gaze in the West, Régis Debray reminds us of the etymology of the word “image.” In Ancient Rome, imago was the term used to designate the wax mask that reproduced the faces of the deceased. A birth brought about by death, which transforms the portrait image into a kind of funerary art.

 

I Saw  Me Seeing Myself by Liz Gorman is a cameraless photographic project that addresses death, plastic pollution, and artistic narcissism. Her images are made up of different photograms—that is, photographic images obtained by placing objects directly onto a photosensitive surface and exposing them to direct light without the intervention of a camera.

 

Each of the photograms is created using a plastic mold of her face and the photographic prints obtained from this imago or death mask onto the paper.

 

Looking into the mirror and becoming captivated by oneself harks back to the myth of Narcissus and the culture of narcissism, which Christopher Lasch defined as one of the fundamental characteristics of our time.