“Portraits and Butterflies”
The collection “Portraits and Butterflies” is a fusion of visual documentation by a lepidopterist from Tabriz from the past half-century. This lepidopterist gathered butterfly species from the Azerbaijan region, dried them, and then photographed them. This collection was collaged and combined with personnel portrait negatives by Nasser Bakhshi during the same years.
The photography of the butterflies is done in such a way that.
The created world leads us to an illusion of the depersonalization of these butterflies, harmonizing with conceptual imagery. The lepidopterist’s effort in documenting the species has made the images inherently conceptual; when a contemporary viewer sees it in a context separate from species research, especially in the visual arts domain, it is immediately placed in the category of artistic documentary photography, and this is the potential that can be well integrated with artistic collections.
The entire structure of the photo is shot against several backgrounds; dark backgrounds that create a sense of illusion in the butterflies and present us with an astonishing contrast of color layers. The subtleties, achieved through analogue photography, transform them into a range of tones that intrigue the viewer.
Another approach is placing the model against a greyish-olive background, where the grey butterflies with warm hues confront us with the coldness of depersonalization and death. It’s as if these butterflies are frozen and eternally dead, and the viewer, after absorbing the model’s subtleties, approaches this frozen state and death.
Another interaction by the photographer with the photo’s background is a pleasing pink that, with its power of regeneration and life, contrasts the depersonalization of the butterflies, the delicate colour spectrum, and the models’ presence, confronting us with a contradiction of life and death. Sometimes, looking at them, one can imagine the beginning of hope, and sometimes envision death at the height of beauty.
This discussion initiates the understanding of this photo’s integration with personnel negatives of individuals who might not even have an interest in recognizing their identity. The fusion and collage include portraits prepared for office and governmental daily needs, where the photographer knows that in this photo, a human is akin to a function that requires order, and the identity card is the sole conceptual need of this photo.
In these photos, humans undergo conceptual identity stripping and feeling devalued, and the image of humans resembles a herd of beings living and working for predetermined goals. Combining these negatives with butterfly photos and creating a documentary-like atmosphere deliberately blends in a way that we realize these visual documents, from a not-so-distant past, introduce us to a daily life that is not so easy to inhabit, but the conceptualization in this collage-like collection symbolizes a form of life and death that the artist has idealized; a form created and imagined as a memorial for a lost life.
This image might better represent the life and death we always perceive and imagine, life alongside death, a political image of human life. In this era, a life is arranged for humans that subtly carries death alongside it. This philosophical notion has always existed and has been explored throughout history, but when we return to contemporary life, we perceive it more and more tangibly. Humans, like other living species in nature controlled by them, are subject to such powers that control and determine their fate, just like these species.
However, this life alongside death has taken an organized form, and viewing this collage collection of portraits and butterflies draws us into a more personal and comprehensive reading, corresponding to the audience’s mind. This reading has occurred deep within our collective feelings and is experienced daily.
The collection “Portraits and Butterflies,” aside from the concepts and propositions mentioned above, is a combination of documentation and design, confronting the audience’s mind with a design approach. The design in this collection defines icons that can be easily delved into.
It evokes sensations of delicate cocoons in old wrapping papers, which, combined symbolically with archival cardboard backgrounds, negatives, and butterflies—each carrying its own semantic and emotional weight—convey a unique feeling to the audience through documentary-like presentation and design techniques.
Their small dimensions turn the audience into researchers, engaging them with their biological issues and the surrounding world within the layers of biological ornaments, which coincidentally include humans. Ultimately, within this designed and conceptual visual work, a sensory story emerges in the audience, starting a journey through the layers.
This collection is shaped from the visual archive of Naser Bakhshi’s museum archive, presenting designedly, documentary-like, and collaged feedback within an artistic structure.