Officier 1940 - 1943

This black and white photograph of an officer, taken by an anonymous artist, feels like a memory pulled from a forgotten album. Look at the way the light catches the brim of his hat and the buttons of his coat. The textures are subtle but present, from the grain of the photograph to the suggestion of fabric in his uniform. You can almost feel the crispness of the air and the weight of the moment. It's as if the photograph itself is a physical object, holding onto the past. The edges of the photograph are visible, slightly raised, and suggest the presence of the artist who has lovingly placed the image in an album. I think of artists like Gerhard Richter, who blurred and re-photographed found images, exploring the slippage between memory and representation. This photograph, like Richter’s paintings, invites us to consider how we construct meaning from fragments of the past. It reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation, a way of seeing and thinking that embraces ambiguity.