Virgilio Ferreira. Blurred Times

The Blurred Times series deals with explorations of the human condition and the vague quality of reality. My aim is to capture states of being that are intangible in this world, which we see as a transient and uncertain place. These states are related with an initial impression, which is incomplete, difficult to grasp or define. In these pictures I attempt to evoke those feelings of vulnerability, emptiness, impermanence and solitude, which are strongly related to the uncertain times that we live in. Feelings and perceptions are developing into a more fluid, less concrete state, made of blurred realities. It seems that there is a growing sense of doubt about how to live in this era of uncertainty. These images are haunted depictions of our world, and maybe they reflect us.

I am interested in exploring these notions of alienation, ethereal and haunting, by capturing candid moments of anonymous people in public spaces, where faces and bodies become an object of investigation. Images are discoloured and faded; the individual becomes detached from the physical world around them, which suggests an absence of secure identity. The bodies seem to lose density, and an illusory sense of infinite space is created, where linear time appears to be suspended. This may generate a psychological state of emptiness, and the figures seem to become alien to themselves.

In order to translate this kind of transient perception of a figure also transient, I am doing experiments with focus and light. In these photo-chemical experiments the use of light has a double function: it both records and destroys the information in the picture, denying space references as well as ordinary perception. Aesthetically, I attempt to create this effect of appearances and disappearances of materiality, and to explore the soft tonal contrast of the grey, as if drawing white on black. The resulting photographic work, was produced by multiple exposure during the moment of capture, and deliberately takes on the expression and qualities of the drawing.

©Virgilio Ferreira
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