{"id":1130,"date":"2025-03-29T16:13:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-29T13:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/burakbulut.org\/?page_id=1130"},"modified":"2026-04-19T02:32:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T00:32:47","slug":"quimera-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/burakbulut.org\/es\/chimera-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Quimera"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Chimera<\/h1>\n

The Body as Optical Rupture<\/p>\n

Mirrored, fractured, reformed \u2014 a body that exists only within the optics of the camera.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

Photography promises to capture what is. Chimera<\/em> disrupts that promise. In this series, the body is fragmented through damaged mirrors, refractive surfaces, and projected light \u2014 producing anatomies that cannot be fixed or fully known. The figure appears doubled, stretched, folded into itself. Not broken, but liberated from the tyranny of a single perspective.The title invokes the mythological chimera: a creature assembled from incompatible parts, impossible yet undeniably present. Here, the body becomes its own chimera \u2014 a form that holds contradictions, that cannot be reduced to one truth. Every distortion is achieved in-camera, through the choreography of light, surface, and flesh. Nothing is added afterwards. What the photograph records is what the lens actually saw, and what the lens saw depends entirely on what was placed between it and the body.The series works through a shifting toolkit of optical interventions \u2014 no two images rely on the same configuration. Scratched and warped mirrors catch the body and scatter it into overlapping planes, so the figure appears to fold through itself within a single exposure. Refractive surfaces produce soft doublings, where contours drift and reattach in unexpected places. Coloured light and projected pattern flood the skin, rewriting the body as a surface on which optical information can be written. Each image is an experiment in what happens when the camera is asked to see through something, rather than directly at something.The conceptual reference point is Hans Bellmer’s La Poup\u00e9e<\/em>, which dismembered and reassembled the female form to expose the violence beneath desire \u2014 but Chimera<\/em> operates in the opposite direction. Where Bellmer cut and sutured, these images refract; there is no violence, only optical multiplication. The body remains whole while perception splinters. Other conversations happen at the edges: Yayoi Kusama’s saturation fields, the Op Art tradition’s pressure on the eye, the long lineage of broken mirrors in modernist photography from Brassa\u00ef onwards. But the governing question stays constant \u2014 what does a body look like when the visual field refuses to let it rest as a single stable form?Within Chimera<\/em>, one focused investigation has emerged as its own named sub-series. Dysmorphia<\/em> photographs bodies through scratched glass and warped reflective surfaces, their forms stretched and compressed in ways that evoke the distorted self-perception of body dysmorphic disorder. These images do not illustrate a diagnosis; they visualize an experience. What does it feel like when the mirror lies? Dysmorphia<\/em> received an Honorable Mention at the 2025 Annual Photography Awards in the Body & Nudes category.<\/p>\n

The contemporary resonance of the whole series is unavoidable. In an era of filtered selfies, AI-generated bodies, and augmented reality, Chimera<\/em> asks: what is an authentic image of a body? The answer, these photographs suggest, may be that no single image can contain the body’s full truth. Every representation is already a distortion; Chimera<\/em> simply makes the distortion visible, and does so using nothing but what happened in front of the camera.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Selected Works<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>
\"Chimera,<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Nude<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Silhouette<\/a><\/div><\/div>
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\"Curved<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Reflective<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Abstract<\/a><\/div><\/div>
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\"A<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"A<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Translucent<\/a><\/div><\/div>
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\"Abstract<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"A<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Nude<\/a><\/div><\/div>
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\"Nude<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Nude<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Chimera<\/a><\/div><\/div>
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\"A<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Chimera<\/a><\/div><\/div>
\"Nude<\/a><\/div><\/div>
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Sub-Series & Editions<\/h2>\n

Chimera<\/em> contains one named sub-series. Dysmorphia<\/em><\/a> is a focused investigation photographing the body through scratched and warped reflective surfaces; it received an Honorable Mention at the 2025 Annual Photography Awards (Body & Nudes).<\/p>\n

Archival pigment prints are released in editions of 5 + 1 Artist Proof on Hahnem\u00fchle Photo Rag and Baryta papers. Selected works are represented on Artsper<\/a>, Saatchi Art<\/a>, and Artmajeur<\/a>. For direct inquiries, exhibition loans, or collector pricing: print@burakbulut.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n