Limelight

 

There is no doubt that the places photographed by Karin Borghouts are real. Yet their being in perfect balance between reality and imagination takes the viewer aback, raises doubts and curiosity. Reverse on the viewer an inescapable sense of alienation that lasts for long and is reinforced by the image that follows, giving a complete sense to this surprising series, and together multiplying its countless possibilities of interpretation. The more ambiguous and misleading arise the images the more precise and flawless is the gaze of the Belgian photographer, that becomes itself a “builder” of places, a not entirely objective witness of some kind of staged nature, subjected to a mere tool of composition. Fragments of an everyday reality, intended as such only if they are fully seized, are juxtaposed and aligned as individual characters to form new meaningful sentences, resulting in a language that does not tell of public spaces, zoos and amusement parks anymore, but the relationship between reality and the viewer, irretrievably placed into question. References to art history, to painting in particular, and to set design, help to fuel this kind of unsolvable riddle, between indisputable truths and illusions, between the pure perception and the certainty of being part of a well-known world.

 

 

Photo:

© Courtesy of Karin Borghouts

www.karinborghouts.be

(click on the image at right for more pictures)