UNTITLED PORTRAITS

I shaved my head in 2012. It was an impulsive move driven by some undercurrent rebellious urge to become someone else. It was during my first year in New York and I was searching for myself. Swept along by the city, the density of people and individualities, the creative freedom – I wanted to be seen, to be different from who I was before. I wanted to cut off the past and redefine myself.

The shaved head, no make-up and androgynous look became my identity. It felt good. Sometimes I passed as a boy and it filled me with inner pleasure. Sometimes I wore very feminine outfits that didn’t correspond with the buzzed hair. It’s been twelve years, I mastered this look—it was mine—and nothing could shake it... Until recently.

The power of images is undeniable. Seeing yourself in a photograph is like seeing yourself from the outside, looking at yourself from a distance, from the perspective of others. Self-portraiture has been an important way for me to cope with my inner feelings, especially those around displacement and belonging.

For Untitled Portraits, I explored self-portraiture and created 20 different personas, rediscovering parts of myself in doing so. My inspirations were Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol’s polaroids of famous people, especially of downtown New York—with all their glam and fabulous expressive identities. I always longed to be part of that era.

I forgot how fabulous it felt to have big, long hair reminiscent of sex icons like Jerry Hall or Marilyn Monroe. I saw how I could look with big red lips and eyelashes so long that my eyelids are heavy. I was reminded of my twenty-something-self when my hair was long enough to cover my breasts and the only power and self-value I had back then was my femininity, my body, my sexuality. Seeing myself like that again felt surreal and confusing. But I kind of liked it...

Then I went in the opposite direction. I always wanted to have a moustache. And the one I photographed myself with fits me so well. I sometimes use a boy’s name for myself – Mario. Here, I was finally Mario in full force. It gave me a new sense of confidence, it brought up my cockiness, determination and extroversion, to yet another level than before.

I cherished all the other identities—posing as the Hollywood movie star, the New Jersey housewife, the spoiled boy from Miami with gold teeth, the Heidi-baby-doll from Austria, the successful business lesbian from Hamburg, the pink-haired girl with a gap in her teeth… All the things I am not really, but could have been, maybe even still be… I savored each one of the identities for all they had to offer—seeing myself with childish astonishment as somebody else, as somebody I didn’t know. It was deeply satisfying and very disturbing.

It stirred lots of questions for me. What is feminine and what is masculine? Where is the thin line that divides those binary stereotypes that I wish would not exist but are still very much there? What defines sexy? What makes me feel powerful and strong? Can I be perceived as powerful with big red lips and gorgeous blonde hair on the same level as with a black bob?

How much do I subconsciously shape my look to be seen the way I want to be seen?

And is it really who I truly am?