PHOTO:Delphine Burtin

Delphine Burtin studied at the School of Applied Arts in Vevey, Switzerland, receiving her degree in graphic design. Her practice combines studio shootings with daylight photographs, which the artist cuts up and re-photographs, resulting in visual impressions that cause viewers to question their perception of reality. With each image, viewers must ask themselves if what they see is real or artificial, manipulated or unmediated, which ultimately leads them to question whether reality can be perceived on its own terms, or if in fact all experience is subjective.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Benrubi Gallery Archive

In her second show with the gallery, Delphine Burtin brings together four new bodies of work, all visual explorations using forms found in nature such as harvested plants or a subject as essential as folded paper. Burtin presents us with photographic work that is a study around the object: it’s geometry and the space it inhabits, forcing us to question our relationship to the tangible. The artist’s treatment of her subject in muted light, decomposed space and the loss of time creates a visual pun where the elements of the “real” only emerge in the final image. The invisible nature of the photographed subject becomes the final protagonist, our minds are lost in the reality the artist gives us. We recompose the object following the visual breakdown she presents. Burtin goes beyond the creation of the image. She looks to the sculptural dimension as her building blocks and the experience of the viewer as the final touchstone between the constructed interior world: the picture space and its’ relationship to an objective reality. Delphine Burtin studied at the School of Applied Arts in Vevey, Switzerland, receiving her degree in graphic design. Her practice combines studio shootings with daylight photographs, which the artist cuts up and re-photographs, resulting in visual impressions that cause viewers to question their perception of reality. With each image, viewers must ask themselves if what they see is real or artificial, manipulated or unmediated, which ultimately leads them to question whether reality can be perceived on its own terms, or if in fact all experience is subjective.  As Burtin says, “I like thinking I’ve seen something that in reality is completely different. I like it when our brain plays tricks on us and creates a trompe-l’oeil, making us see and believe something that is not, in fact, there”. 

Info: Benrubi Gallery, 521 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, Duration: 15/11/18-5/1/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://benrubigallery.com