II - Tereza Vlčková

I. My other I. Reality or fiction? Each of us has our other I. Are we the same or different? Existence. That which often appears to be the same is really quite different. What is reality? A vision of ours, or what we want to see? Fiction is often interchanged with reality and vice versa. But what is fiction?

Untitled from "II" series © 2007-2008 Tereza Vlčková

Are we alone? Solitaires? Or could there be someone so similar to us, so alike, and not only emotionally (psychologically), but also physiologically? Someone, who is our soul mate, who “understands” us? The one, who holds our own mirror up for us. But is the reflection always ours? Doesn't it unknowingly just uncover internally pent-up fears which we have inside of us (and of ourselves)? Isn't it rather the corrupter of our persona and of our fixed notions? The quiet insinuator of latent, demonic spectacles in the form of scary patterns, of our hidden, turned away darker sides?


II. Persona and personality.Incarnation.

"We don't have only good qualities; there is also something negative waiting inside us. I wanted to capture the dark and unknown image of our other selves." explains Vlčková. The essential photographic theme and style of the Two series is the ease with which Vlčková leads us out of our time and space and into another, where we see children inhabiting their darker selves, mirroring our own. "I tried to question the deeply-rooted role of children bound with loveliness, playfulness, and childishness. I wanted to point at their personalities," adds an artist.

Untitled from "II" series © 2007-2008 Tereza Vlčková

By means of our own striving, the alter ego unveils and divides the concealed and suppressed   identity of the being's whole. It configures the borders of proximity and distance, disaccord  and understanding. The dark and clear side live in symbiosis – one next to the other, hip to hip; sometimes one tries to squeeze out the other.

Fear of getting close and of understanding one's self (and others) often originates from the mirroring of another human being, but also from how our persona divides up with respect to our irrational comprehension. This diverging of schizophrenic origin is incarnated and personified by the splitting of many an “I”.

Untitled from "II" series © 2007-2008 Tereza Vlčková

The questions, which I ask in the series, I seek in the other me, in the principle of duplication, in the “twins”, when I placed computer generated and created clones amongst biological twins. It is a riddle requesting unraveling – but it is only up to us and our imagination to judge the genuineness of the visions and analyze their likeness. How easy it is to change a person's identity in this day and age – we are talking about the polemics of personality within the entirety of its many meanings.

Untitled from "II" series © 2007-2008 Tereza Vlčková

In nature, we never find two identical patterns, two identical saplings, two identical blades of grass. So it is into this labyrinth of bushes and twigs, this conflux of natural chaos, inside it all, that I have framed the two little ones, existences. The unbound nature of shady wildwoods, fear of being abandoned in the gloomy forest, in unforgiving nature, all gives a feeling of distress and worry. The forbidden world as emblem of the skeleton in our closet...

It's where, on our own, we are afraid; where if it were up to us we would not want to be. But what if we weren't alone? The other one would overcome our fearfulness – the one, who is not scared, who is not afraid.

Untitled from "II" series © 2007-2008 Tereza Vlčková

A child's defenselessness and the vulnerability of little girls, their frailty and gentleness, do not tend to be associated with traits we apply to the male population (and for this reason none are depicted on the photographs). Feminine is in discord with masculine. So all the more we might be surprised by the fact that the innocent faces have expressions of fearlessness and maturity, not belonging to them. Are opaque masks of the internal covering exterior angelic features? Kids can be cruel. Illusion reveals character. By means of continuous contrast and disaccord, riddles of lightness and darkness, black and white, we do not find a clear answer – rather, it seems to be concealed somewhere in the middle.

Untitled from "II" series © 2007-2008 Tereza Vlčková

Tereza Vlčková was born in 1983 in Czech republic. Her work has been on display in gallery Lefebvre in Paris, in Slovakia, and in shows in the U.K. and Japan. She is the winner of Prix de la Photographie, Paris (Px3) in 2010 and a Grand Prix BMW award from Lyon Septembre de la Photographie, France. Her work is held in the collections of the Musée d'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Michaelis School of Fine Arts, Cape Town, South Aftrica; and PPF Art, Czech Republic.


Tereza's website: HERE
More images from "II" can be found in prism #04 HERE.