Lethe
In Greek mythology, Lethe is the personification of forgetfulness and the underworld river that cleanses the memories of the dead in preparation for the afterlife.
As important recollections slip from our memory, this loss brings its own kind of grief. If we do not remember a person or an event or a feeling, perhaps these might as well not have existed in the first place?
The poet Sylvia Plath wrote of stepping up from 'the black car of Lethe, Pure as a baby'. It is an escape, a relief from our own limitations.
Torn-up portraits, reassembled and rephotographed, evoke fading recollections and flickers of dreams. Interspersed landscapes draw on classic Surrealist tropes; shifting scale and perspective to detach from reality and conjure a realm of the subconscious.
'Lethe' won in PDN Photo Annual 2016 'Personal' category and was shortlisted for The Renaissance Photography Prize with the accompanying exhibition at Getty Images Gallery, just off Oxford Street in Central London from 7th September 2016.
'Lethe' opened on 2nd of November 2017 as Sylwia's first solo show in US at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon and was subsequently shown during numerous solo and group exhibitions, including a second American solo show with Pictura Gallery in Bloomington, IN in October 2020
Series consists of 10 images, 40.5 x 50.5 cm Archival Giclee Print on Hahnemule German Etching paper, mounted on aluminium
A selection of images from the series, exhibition installation at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR and selected publications, including a copy of PDN magazine:
