The Multiple Exposures of Frédéric Agius
Here, yet elsewhere
The human brain is a meaning-making machine.
When presented with an image, our minds automatically begin scanning for clues as to what we are looking at.
First, we’re drawn to bright areas, decoding basic shapes to understand objects. We lock on to anything that looks like a human face, trying to comprehend expressions that may convey an emotion. If there’s no face, but anything resembling a body, we’ll look to see what the body language might be trying to tell us.
The compulsion to do this is so strong that we will even read the body language of inanimate objects; a lamp with its head pointed down looks sad whereas a lamp fully erect looks proud.
Any single image can contain a multitude of signals, which don’t just come from reading the subjects in the scene.
Arrangement, exposure, composition, shutter speed, depth of field - all tools in a photographer’s tool belt that can be used to craft alternative narratives out of the same subject matter. We can choose where to direct our audiences attention, and we can choose to distract from elements that we want to hide.
The language of photography works like any other language, we decipher meaning not just from a singular element, but from the combination of elements we are presented with.
But all tools have their limitations.
In a standard photograph we can only show what is visible within a singular scene. To offer additional context we often look to use captions, or to sequence our images. Sequencing allows one to pick up on clues from previous and future images to build a more complex narrative than what can be gained from a single image alone.
Unless of course, if you combine multiple exposures within the same frame.
Frédéric Agius creates other-worldly compositions through the use of multiple exposures.
His use of light, colour and composition create surrealist images that feel like daydreams, often positioning a female figure in the frame alongside elements of nature.
One could read his images either to be representing the thoughts, dreams, or feelings of the female subjects, or alternatively, one could interpret his work to be surreal daydreams about beautiful feminine women.
It depends which subject you consider to be the foreground, and which to be the background. It also, likely, depends on your own context as an audience of the work.
As a heterosexual male, the story I read in Agius’ work is one of raw, primal, earthy desire.
Culturally, we are taught that our primal desires are wrong and shameful. That we should keep them to ourselves. But the fact that we all have them, and are so intrigued by them, will always challenge this taboo. The human desire for sex and procreation is the reason all of us are here, after all.
For all of our advancements in technology and culture, our basic, natural, urges remain as unchanged as ever.*
Frédéric Agius’s images speak to these primal feelings.
Links & Notes
*To clarify this point, I am not arguing in favour of the unrestrained following of human desire. Terrible things have been done, and are still being done, by people who follow their ‘natural urges’. We need boundaries and we need restraint, which is why it is important that artists do make work about these subjects. Making a subject taboo does not solve the problems associated with that subject.
All images © Frédéric Agius
You can see Agius’s work at https://fredericagius.com
Amazing, this is so hard to do