Looking Glass1 Karin Borghouts
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Through the Looking Glass

2001-2005

Karin Borghouts’ photos portray things that touch both the real and the imaginary. Reality is not a given but in constant flux. A photo is a moment of choice, a time-based representation of reality that everyone interprets in their own way. To this experience Karin Borghouts consciously brings an addition. Rather than merely registering, she transforms the places she frames into a dream world. Her preference goes out to artificial locations such as zoos, amusement parks or open-air museums. She calls them safe, controlled places in which nature takes on the function of decor. Her landscapes are in fact ‘indoor’ ones that still refer to pristine, wild nature. Human shapes have no natural place in these surroundings. According to the artist they would be too much of a decisive factor in the image; people render the image narrative and restrict free interpretation.By carefully choosing the right artificial venues, Borghouts records a world of the imagination where the mysterious is still palpable. Not coincidentally the title of the work is a reference to the second part of the adventures of Alice in Wonderland: what lies behind the mirror, the world beyond the real is fascinating, but also incites fear, disbelief and doubt. Large format analogue camera.

  • Guard Domaine du Levant, Cuesmes © Karin Borghouts, 2024

    2024

    Au Borinage

    The Borinage, South-West of Mons in Belgium, was one of the most inspiring regions that Karin Borghouts visited as part…

  • Series Homescapes ©Karin Borghouts 2020

    2020-2024

    Homescapes

    This photographic project started in the spring of 2020, the year of the corona. For this photographic project Karin Borghouts…

  • Series Paris Impasse © Karin Borghouts

    2011-2021

    Paris Impasse

    Paris has about 600 cul de sacs, cités, villas and squares: streets that end in a dead end. Cul-de-sacs. Within…

  • Series 'A painter's house' © Karin Borghouts, 2017

    2017-2022

    A Painter's House

    After his death, the house of the painter Marten Melsen (1870-1947) was inhabited by his unmarried daughters and son. The…