As far as self portraits go, Lisa Sorgini‘s latest series isn’t the most personally revealing you’ll see, although our favourite Australian photographer still manages to express plenty without actually revealing her face at all. The collection is called Ipseity – another word for individual identity – but Sorgini goes to great and creative lengths to obfuscate her face with a varied selection of intrusive objects, acting as unlikely masks to her true self.
Ipseity is an ongoing project in which Sorgini leaves much of the meaning open to interpretation. The artist uses a black background as a means of focusing the viewer’s attention on the central, often colourful, object, which then leads the eye to the figure obscured behind. We are invited to draw our own conclusions about her choice of object, applying our own experiences to fill in the missing narrative. Does the bunch of bananas represent a huge predatory spider ready to pounce, or is that just a weird projection of a personal phobia? Is Sorgini hiding behind the clumps of foliage out of fear, or using them as cover to spy on others? The fish has me stumped, I must admit.
© Lisa Sorgini
