Birthe Piontek is a German photographer who moved to Canada in 2005 after she received her MFA from the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. Piontek’s work has been exhibited internationally in both solo and group shows and is featured in many worldwide collections.
One of my favourite projects of Piontek is ‘Mimesis’ as she uses it as a way to make a fictional world that represents our relationship to reality and the way we perceive images of ourselves and other people. Piontek wanted Mimesis to expose how mirrors and pictures are just one version of the self, versions that can be cracked and reshaped. She reinterpreted the original photos through collage work and photoshop additions as her work invites viewers to look beyond the surface images, especially of ourselves and other people to help us realise that everyone has many sides to them.
Another one of Birthe Piontek’s projects that I will be taking inspiration from is ‘Her Story’, I really like how she has manipulated the photos in each one of her final pieces as you can tell how the women are represented throughout the edits. Piontek created this project as an approach to the topic of her mother’s and grandmothers’ loss of memory due to Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Piontek stated that she had many thoughts about memory and memory loss, which seemed from her personal connection and emotional involvement with these topics. She also wanted to explore these subjects as she has always had the same question and fear that she might carry the disease, she also enjoyed how she could express her thoughts around the lineage and heritage not only within her family but also on a bigger scale: how humans interact and are connected by collective memory, as well as how our memories shape our identities. The nature of memory Birthe has always sounded fascinating and has always been a lifelong obsession of hers.
Image analysis
Above is a photo from Birthe Piontek which I think is able to portray a deeper meaning without having to have extravagant features with a lot of elements. Piontek used a single tool such as a pencil, pen or pin tack to create these holes in the photo of the woman. I like how much emotion this image conveys as there is clearly anger behind this, which makes the backstory even more interesting. Even though Piontek hasn’t released a meaning behind this photo being able to make a story in your head keeps viewers interested. One feature that I enjoy about this image is the contrast of light from the dots behind the photo compared to the darkness of the background and the actual photo o the woman.