Berti Hoppe thuis en wandelend met de hond 1936

This is 'Berti Hoppe thuis en wandelend met de hond' by Herman Besselaar; a photographic collage made with gelatin silver prints. What catches my eye is how Besselaar approaches this portrait of Berti. He's made it out of these fragments; moments clipped from her day. I get the sense of someone piecing together memories; little jigsaw pieces from the everyday. The dark backing feels like a kind of shadow box for the fragments. I notice the scalloped edges of the photographs; a material detail that lends a tactile quality to the piece. It’s like how we remember people; not in one clear image, but in glimpses. Like we're sifting through a box of old photos in the attic, trying to stitch together a cohesive picture. And maybe that’s the point; maybe there is no single, definitive portrait, just a collection of moments that, together, hint at something larger. Like the paintings of Gerhard Richter, Besselaar seems to ask us what a portrait can be.