Known Space

Known Space marks my first conscious attempt to engage with photography as a medium for self-reflection and self-revelation. Created during a pivotal phase of introspection, this work became a ritualized act of returning to my own body—after a long period of celibacy and internal focus—as a symbolic gesture of readiness to connect, expose, and be seen. The act of undressing and photographing myself was both personal and poetic: a metaphorical emergence from the shell I had long inhabited.

Inspired by David Hockney’s approach to fragmented visual structure, I built a composite portrait that categorizes and reassembles my anatomy. Each body part represents a facet of my identity: the stomach, evoking butterflies and early longing; the arms, sites of control and strength; the neck, a symbol of vulnerability. This categorization was not clinical but mythopoetic—my own visual language of ego, elegance, and weakness.

The photographic process was raw and unfiltered. I used digital photography, but deliberately left imperfections—slightly blurred shots, imperfect light—as part of “removing the veil” of polished self-image. My genitals are shrouded in a semi-translucent white fabric, not out of shame but as an aesthetic act of soft concealment and sacred distance. With the help of a trusted assistant, I composed each image with care, yet the final arrangement evokes something uncomposed—fragmented, searching, tender.

The work was printed on photo paper and mounted onto wooden box-like structures. These objects serve as quiet altars: fragments of the self arranged spatially, asking the viewer not to seek a complete image, but to witness a body learning itself anew. More than a self-portrait, Known Space is a visual poem—an early declaration of my voice as both artist and philosopher of the body.