Belgian-Dutch artist duo Sofie Middernacht and Maarten Alexander present their new ‘Like today, but more like forever’ series at Ingrid Deuss Gallery in Antwerp from 30 March.

With these vulnerable photographic works, consisting of multiple layered scans of pill boxes, the duo seeks the boundaries of photography and conceptual art. The works' transparency and fragility makes them almost float in space. But behind this seeming lightness hides a melancholic theme. The scanned pill boxes are from a mentally ill relative of one of the artists who needs to take medication every day due to a psychotic disorder. Like a personal processing and acceptance process the scans are built up and analysed layer on layer, as if they were a careful dissection of the subject. The stratification is present both literally and symbolically. By adding several transparent layers between subject and viewer it is as if the works become clearer, like a never-ending problem that manifests itself by a lot of repetition.

Just as their previous series ‘Vulnerable Dimensions — in which choices and the challenges connected with making those choices are key— the skill in the photography, the analogue thinking, the importance of the presentation and the awareness of the viewing are also key in this series. What exactly do we see? Are we voyeurs of an intimate and very personal process? As a spectator you are in a strange position, whereby at the same time a feeling of beauty, fragility, intimacy and vulnerability is evoked.

Artists: Sofie Middernacht & Maarten Alexander