Clever set design makes for disorienting Schiele-inspired photo series

Aisha Zeijpveld likes to toy with the viewer. She once overheard two girls discussing her work at a show, with one of them solemnly declaring that her photographs are “definitely Photoshopped.” In fact for the most part they’re not, but Aisha is an image-maker who enjoys confusing us as to what we think we’re seeing. Take her What Remains series from a couple of years ago that was inspired by Egon Schiele’s sketches and created alongside set designers Sara Ivanyi and Judith Veenendaal.

We’ve seen disembodied limbs before, such as in Alt Group and Toaki Okano’s work for the Silo theatre in New Zealand, but this is something quite different, strange twilight compositions where the subjects’ bodies are half visible and half obscured. The overall effect is nicely disorienting and playfully surreal and having seen her speak at the Offset festival in Dublin we’re looking forward to seeing much more of this intriguing creative mind in the future.