“Ugly becomes art.” That is how Cláudia Dias, a conceptual photographer from Portugal, summarizes her work. The photographs are anything but straightforward. The layers of composition translate into layers of meaning.
“I explore the quiet tensions and subtleties of human experience […] each photograph is an attempt to capture not just a moment, but a feeling, an echo of thought, memory, or presence,” says Dias.
Each picture is an exploration of emotional themes, such as mental health, social masking, the fragility of the human body, the ruthless passage of time, or silent farewells. Her frames are still performances to be experienced by the viewer.
Dias’ conceptual, fine-art photography revolves around the idea of Baudelaire’s fleurs du mal, the aesthetic of the ugly and repulsive, hinting at the fact that beauty can emerge from the most unexpected and obscure sources. She says, “I am drawn to the spaces between clarity and ambiguity, where viewers find room to reflect and connect.”
The artist’s main interest is not to revolutionize viewers’ perception but to challenge it, to offer “moments that resonate” and “provoke gentle questioning.” Dias achieves this through imperfect, manipulated, or organic juxtapositions, as well as through an unforeseen combination of black and white photography, diffuse portraiture, and spotlight on the flawed nature of the material world.
Bilateral by definition, Dias’ art is leaving room for those who encounter it to take a respite from the diluted, curated, and eye-pleasing feed and provide a safe space to share an opinion, considering that “sharing […] feels essential for personal exploration.”
“A way to open a subtle dialogue between art and those who encounter it,” as she says.
Read our “Metamorphosis” issue in full
In the 3rd issue of RAWGUE., 24 visual artists and poets share a common pursuit: authenticity over perfection. The subtle art of becoming, the passage through various stages of artistic contemplation, the ever-shifting states of mind, feeling, and medium, or the act of altering reality to underline emotion or meaning – metamorphosis.
We’re a team of writers using our craft to spotlight art in its most honest form. RAWGUE. started as a bi-monthly editorial experiment where each issue’s theme is dictated by the submitted work, thus removing editorial bias from the equation and preserving a more raw approach. We focus on all forms of poetry: written, photographed, painted, drawn, and filmed.
