Faces #12 1998

Vibeke Tandberg made Faces #12 as a photograph, though it has an uncanny painterly quality. The dark brown backdrop makes the central figure appear to be emerging from the shadows, as if painted into existence. The light here feels crucial, doesn’t it? It gently illuminates the face of the sitter, but only just. It’s a very particular light, and I get a sense that Tandberg is interested in the way light reveals and conceals. The surface of the photograph is so smooth it’s almost impossible to detect any sort of mark making but perhaps this very smoothness is a mark of sorts. This feels like a very carefully considered construction – this person, this light, this surface. Tandberg’s photograph reminds me of Lucian Freud's portraits, which are so unflinchingly honest. Both artists embrace ambiguity, inviting us to contemplate the complexities of identity and representation.