I collect and work with old family photographs, found images, books, objects, and nature elements to draw physical connections between memory, history, and identity. By using mixed collage techniques I fragment, overlap and superpose my photographs and paintings combining them with pieces from the found images I appropriate. These photomontages transport women from their original environments to new metaphoric landscapes in which multiple times, topographies and narratives arise. In this body of work I part from recycled photographs to question today’s necessity of testifying all our life experiences through the compulsive creation of trivial images. In the contemporary world we feel compelled to save every moment, gesture or event, and by doing so we intentionally shape our memory. I treat old photographs as little treasures: unique and magical objects that hold a previous way of remembering unconsciously.
Dimensions: 11.8 x 14.5 inches
Materials: 2021 / Framed Pigment Print
Leticia Bernaus
(Pilsen)
The work of Leticia Bernaus (b. Argentina) is a subtly provocative investigation of the contemporary link between the natural and the cultural. She works with moving image, photography, performance, installation and writing, exposing the human body as both a boundary and a medium through which we interact with the world. Bernaus superimposes materials and formats, dissolving the borders between animal and mineral, immaterial and physical, documentary and fiction. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Italy, England, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and Canada. Bernaus received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2019. She has been awarded the UIC University Fellowship (2017 - 2019), the IILA - Fotografia 2017 Prize and residency in Rome (2017, 2018), the Illinois Arts Council (2020), and the Chicago Artists Coalition BOLT residency (2019 - 2020). She lives and works between Buenos Aires, Argentina and Chicago, United States.
