Viviane Sassen

Lexicon, 29 January 2016 - 20 March 2016

Lexicon is a collection of images compiled in 2013 from two existing photographic collections, “Parasomnia” (2011) and “Flamboya” (2008). Rather than photographing as a way of building a pre-determined series, in the interest of representing a particular time, place or subject, Sassen curates collections of her own images, working intuitively from her ever-expanding archive.

Thematically, Lexicon foregrounds the relationship between perception and emotion, and the longstanding connection between photographic images, remembrance, and death and mourning. Many of Sassen’s photographs are carefully constructed while others are incidental scenes she encounters on her travels, leaving us unsure which are imaginary fictions and which scenes from life. Her distinct visual language is articulated by a deep awareness of the formalist concerns of painting, sculpture and photography, as well as an acute sense of colour and the optical resonances of pattern and design.

Although human subjects appear often in Sassen’s work, she does not see herself as aa portraitist, as she explains: “I don’t show the face because I don't want the work to be about that person in the picture. What I am trying to capture or produce is an archetypal image, an image that goes beyond the description of the physiognomic and physical specificities of an individual. I seek to provide the work with a universal dimension, more abstract, more about mankind.”

Lexicon was first shown at Venice Biennale and contains works from the series Flamboya and Parasomnia.

Lexicon, 29 January 2016 - 20 March 2016
Hordaland Kunstsenter
Bergen, Norway