HELEN SEAR

Sightlines are a set of 21 photographs, partially concerned with ideas about the unique object and the copy. 

The images depict a portrait of a woman whose face is obscured by a mass-produced, but hand-painted figurine of a bird. The final photograph is enhanced through the application of several layers of white primer—gesso. 

The images on one level are about photographing paint and painting photographs. Ideas surrounding identity are implied in this convergence of the unique and/or the copy. Through obscuring the face of the woman, Sear interrupts the gaze of both sitter and observer. 

The spectator of the photograph is unable to know the sitter's identity, in a similar way that she/he can't know the identity of the person(s) who hand-painted the bird.