Eating with 2016

Elina Brotherus created this photograph, titled "Eating With", using photography. The portrait is dominated by a face obscured with what appears to be white foam, which invites an immediate sense of tactile curiosity. The foam is applied in a manner that both conceals and reveals, selectively highlighting parts of the face while abstracting others. Brotherus seems to challenge traditional notions of portraiture. It's as if she's asking us to consider what defines identity, and whether it's possible to truly capture a person's essence through representation. The interplay between concealment and visibility introduces a semiotic game, where the signifier and signified are destabilized. The work invites interpretation beyond a literal depiction, pushing us to question the very nature of representation and identity in art. This image creates a dialogue about the relationship between the seen and unseen, prompting us to reconsider our expectations of visual art and its capacity to challenge fixed meanings.