Mariela Sancari, Moisés

Audio Description

This work consists of three large photographic prints measuring one point two meters by one point eight meters each, hung close together and high on the wall. These photographs are printed on a lightweight paper, unframed and pinned at the top. The bottom of the prints float off the wall slightly.

All of the photographs depict the same man… a Caucasian older gentleman who is perhaps in his late sixties or early seventies. He is clean-shaven, with salt and pepper hair and dressed only in a clean ribbed white singlet. All works frame the bust and head of man’s body, from upper arm to a bit above their head.

He appears in different postures in each image but always with a light white flesh-toned background. In the image to the left the man is facing three-quarter turn to the right, with his eyes closed, his brow lifted expectantly, his mouth slightly opened and his head lightly tilted back. In the middle photograph, the man is facing the opposite direction, again at a three-quarter turn with his eyes closed, but now with his head craned slightly forward. In the image to the right, the man is in profile and looking towards the background. He is craning his head even further than before. His shoulders are slightly hunched and the back of his head is visible with the tips of his hairs extending off the right edge of the frame.

The work stems from the experience of the artist, who was not allowed to see the body of their father when he passed away. As the artist writes that not seeing him made her doubt his death. The work is typology of portraits of men in their 70s, the age that the artist’s father would be today if he were alive.

Mariela Sancari was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has lives and works in Mexico City. She is a self-taught artist whose works revolves around truthfulness and fiction in images. Sancari uses personal narratives to explore the boundaries of the scope of photography as a means of representation.

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Artwork credit is: Mariela Sancari (from Argentina, born 1976). Moisés, 2015. Ink-jet print on rice paper.