Every Shade an Image

The photo series Every Shade an Image draws the viewer into an atmospherically dense world of images in which identity becomes visible as an open, multi-layered process—especially when reflected in international experiences.

During her residencies abroad, Katharina Gruzei became aware of how much she began to reflect on the internal in the external surroundings: on her origins, cultural influences, and social conditions. The studio scholarships act as a mirror that reflects her back on herself—on her role as an Austrian who suddenly stands for a certain image. Above all, the intense discourse on identity that she experienced during her residency in New York flowed directly into her work and sharpened her view of personal and cultural attributions.

The motifs shift between concrete identity features and symbolic nature motifs. Blank spaces invite the viewer's own interpretation; identity appears as a variable mesh of impressions, memories and meanings. The viewer thus becomes part of the negotiation process.

Contested spaces serve as projection surfaces for cultural and personal utopias. Using analog color gradient filters, she transforms the Karawanken landscape, a historically disputed border region in the south of Austria, into a dystopian red- glowing volcanic landscape. The physical division of the image refers to alternative borderlines and makes cultural viewing regimes visible.

The title “Every Shade an Image” alludes to light and shadow - to the visible and the hidden, the invisible as a space for interpretation. Gruzei's photographs blur the boundary between perception and imagination and create an interaction between the work and the viewer.