second hand pose: portraits of the unknown
Kim Demuth’s latest exhibition, Second Hand Pose: Portraits of the Unknown, is as much about the processes of representation as it is about the subjects of his works. Demuth takes lost and found photographs of unknown people and remodels these images to create an illusion of three-dimensional presence. Using an optical device, he box-mounts these images and the effect is an illusory image which hovers between two and three dimensions.
Demuth does not use lenticular printing, but rather a technique which induces a sfumato effect, intensifying the images’ relation to memory, dreams and the subconscious. Mediating between the antinomies of reality and illusion is therefore key to Demuth’s practice. His portraits remind the viewer that images, especially the perceptions they incite, are part of how we understand the world around us. More crucially, Demuth seeks to interrupt the viewer’s spontaneous responses to his artworks, which leads us to question more widely the manipulating impact of images on our perception of our environments. The fact that Demuth uses emotionally evocative images, and in particular portraits which reveal human vulnerabilities, further provokes the viewer to question their impulsive responses to the images around them. By intervening in the mimetic qualities of portrait photography with illusory techniques, Demuth subtly reminds us to question the automatic process of seeing and believing.
As we walk into the exhibition space, we are confronted by a wall dedicated to portraits of children, with many of them possessing an antique quality. Adding to the unearthly sense of these images, all nine found photographs have been digitally manipulated to give the children an ethereal quality. Contradictorily, Demuth has named the children, giving the impression that each child pictured is