Untitled (portrait of a woman) c. 1950

Editor: This is John Deusing's "Untitled (portrait of a woman)," and it looks like a photographic negative. It's captivating but also a little eerie. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: Eerie is a good word for it, a bit ghostly. The inverted tones transform a familiar genre—the portrait—into something otherworldly. The woman's gaze seems to pierce through the negative space, like a memory surfacing. What does it say about photography that such a fleeting image can still convey such depth? Editor: I hadn't thought about that, the surfacing memory part. So it's less about the individual and more about the nature of memory and representation itself? Curator: Perhaps both. Or maybe Deusing is playing with the idea that every portrait is, in a way, a negative, a reverse image of a person's essence. Editor: That's a perspective shift that completely changes how I see this piece. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure. It's amazing what surfaces when we start looking at things backward, isn't it?