This striking artwork is a diptych featuring two monochromatic photographic prints encased in intricately cracked glass. The left panel portrays a mannequin-like figure in an elegant pose, illuminated by stark, angular light, creating dramatic shadows across its form. The right panel complements with a similar figure seated in a contemplative manner, surrounded by mechanical elements that evoke a surreal, industrial atmosphere. The shattering effect of the glass introduces a sense of decay and fragmentation, enhancing the visual tension and depth. This juxtaposition of human and machine, life and artifice, invites viewers to explore themes of identity, vulnerability, and the passage of time. The careful manipulation of light and texture elevates the piece, creating an immersive, thought-provoking experience.
Paper costumes that seem borrowed from Oskar Schlemmer’s triadic ballet make the ballerinas look like marionettes. Their dislocation recalls the puppets Hans Bellmer featured in his surreal photographic experiments.
Standing Ballet and Seated Ballet, Diptych, 2010
Efren Isaza
Standing Ballet and Seated Ballet, Diptych, 2010
Archival pigment print mounted on aluminum, intervened by the artist
Dimensions: 65 H x 96 W in.
Unique
Mounted on aluminum.
Signed by the artist
Efren Isaza, one of Colombia’s most influential fashion photographers, initially studied fashion design. He united his interest in fashion with one of his earliest passions: photography. Graceful female figures lounge in fashionable poses. Paper costumes that seem borrowed from Oskar Schlemmer’s triadic ballet make the ballerinas look like marionettes.
Their dislocation recalls the puppets Hans Bellmer featured in his surreal photographic experiments. Frida Kahlo’s face with her dark, furrowed eyebrows, peers at the viewer out of different scenes; her hair is knotted artfully on her head.The allusions evoked in the imaginative creations of Colombian Fashion photographer Isaza are diverse: he cites and alienates an arsenal of styles before melding them into new compositions OF ONE OF A KIND LIMITED EDITION ARTWORK. It might be a certain scene, a poem, a petal of a flower, or the idea of a person that inspires a new work. His passion for breaking the boundaries of traditional fashion photography is palpable in each of Isaza’s unique works. He is less concerned with fashion than the image, the play of contrasts and the magic and the emotions sometimes saturnine,sometimes buoyant, sometimes surreal, and yet always beguiling that the image transports.
