Lukas Heerich, Untitled (Peel), 2023

2023

Medium

Inkjet print

Dimensions

42 × 31 cm

Edition

Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-155982

Lukas Heerich's "Untitled (Peel)" (2023–ongoing) show removed beauty masks. They are intimate images of people whose physical presence is inscribed in the remnants of past moments of self-care. The distorted faces appear as individual maps onto which the fine lines and pores of the skin's surface have been transferred. The living traces and the process of exfoliation are still recognizable in the "dead" remains. However, they give way to a ghostly expression. They represent the shedding of unwanted aspects of one's body and become a layer between the self and the outside world. The removal of the peel-off mask has the effect of a physical transformation and refers to contemporary mechanisms of self-expression. The possibility of physical renewal and changeability simultaneously reveals the social and media construction of the body as well as empty promises of optimization. In "Untitled (Peel)", the face, as the primary feature of recognition and expression of personal identity, becomes a grotesque grimace in which the ambivalence between individuality and social norms becomes palpable. Heerich focuses on these in-between moments, in the uncertainty of which questions of protection, of presence, and of identity can be raised. The gaze is directed from the inside through the mask, provoking a comparison with one's own existence and pointing to the body as a place where identity is constituted and negotiated.