by Marc Apers
Edited and published by Yvette Depaepe, the 6th of May 2024

'Gender Identity'

MISSING IDENTITY ... is the title of my latest exhibition hold in Antwerpen - Ruimte 34 the first week of May.

All images have one thing in common: people everywhere are consciously or suggestively present in one way or another, but they are always as good as (individually) unrecognisable.
You therefore only get to see an object related to a person, a fragment, a contour, or a shadow of a figure, in any case, a person without a clear face and any form of eye contact.

The latter used to be indispensable for me, so my portfolio then also consisted of very penetrating and frontal portraits.
Gradually, however, I started to observe ore and more that people prefer not to come into the picture and would rather hide in fear. What is going on?
On the one hand, modern people are becoming oversaturated via social media with intrusive images that change very quickly, mainly to reassure each other or tot show how fantastic or how horrific it is... 
On the other hand, people do not want an intrusive portrait; it only remains with a 'selfie' or a 'Tik-Tok' reel.

One constantly switches between "'hiding oneself' and putting oneself in the spotlight... Just as I, psychologically and age-related (I'm 64 years old), develop integrity or despair...
As a photographer, however, I don't want to give in to the upheaval that goes on socially and individually.  By the way, true identity arises from doubt and not from the cloning of an image. My personality is currently typified by a roller-coaster of ever changing emotions: often joyful and candid and then lonely and closed, ambitious versus lazy, calm and then fearful, optimistic versus defeated, infected or uncontaminated in and by the corona pandemic, alive and well in these times referred to as 'borderline'.
I want to resist the growing discomfort by looking for a new typology within my visual language.
I am ambitious.  After all, a photographer, just like a painter or a writer, wants to be a conduit, a medium.  This is what I want to do in an aesthetically responsible way, namely, help the viewer look more attentively by focusing on details or the unfilled, and without wanting to lead him too much, providing a gateway to a seeing...


No real or perceived identity is fixed, but the viewer can ask questions, invent a story, give it an identity, and reflect on one's identity.  Images are not reality, they are a gateway to reality, neither more nor less.

Here's a compilation of some images exposed recently.

'Looking for Blue Skies'

'Bathroom Stories'

 

 

 

'Bernardo'

 

 

 

'Only Shadows Remain'

 

 

 

'Silent Walk'

 

 

 

'Fading Memories'

 

 

 

'Dark Figure'

 

 

 

'Burning Flame'

 

 

 

'No Way Out'

 

 

 

'Shadow of a stranger'

 

 

 

'Summer Breeze'

 

 

 

'Excluded'

 

 

 

'The Future Looks Green'

 

 

 

'Emptiness Inside'

 

 

 

'Fading Figure'