Marina Black is interested in the emotional truth in people’s lives where words fail, photographs work.
Most of her work may be categorized as ‘portraits’ but rather than representing an actual person, they represent a state of mind. She is interested in the emotional truth in people’s lives: what their existence like underneath the surface? She is intrigued by the idea that when words disappear the body’s presence continues to be felt through spacing, punctuation, and light.
Black’s photography is about experimentation and the physical process of reworking the surface. She works in analogue, digital and camera-less technologies and likes the tactile qualities of prints, and dealing with fragments, that often take her to a new place.
I rather like this image of her grandparents, how the image has been abbreviated but still stands as a portrait.
‘My images are related to the way you think of a person you never have really known, who you only imagine. Then, the second you face them and see how they really are, the weight of their reality crushes your imagined version. But where did that version come from in the first place?’
Marina Black Canadian
Origin of Species, 2015
from the Hasard Anticipé series
7 x 9½” pigment print on Japanese handmade paper
Edition of 5 + 2 APs
