RE|FRACTION

The project began with a simple observation. I was sitting on a moving bus, rain sliding down the window, and a thin layer of water bent the passing landscape into flowing distortions. The familiar became unstable. That moment stayed with me because it said something about seeing itself: that perception is always mediated, by the material of the world and by the experience one brings to it.

RE|FRACTION treats water as a refracting lens, something placed between the eye and the world that alters what arrives without announcing itself. It does not distort reality. It reveals that there is no single reality to be distorted. What water produces, a bent tree, a broken reflection, a multiplied surface, is not a false image. It is another one, coexisting with all the others, equally valid, equally true. There are several versions of everything. And once that is accepted, the next question follows inevitably: who decides which one we call real.

I photograph the landscape through elements of water placed in front of the lens: glasses of water, dewdrops, puddles, still and moving surfaces, light after rain. Each one behaves differently. Some bend, some multiply, some dissolve, some break the image into fragments. The photograph comes into being already distorted, already interpreted by the water, before I have made a single painterly decision.

These images become the starting point for watercolours on paper. I interpret the distortions freely, without reconstructing the original. I follow where the water has taken the image. What emerges is neither documentation nor abstraction, but an image that has passed through two distortions: first the water, then the painting.

The project continues a method that runs throughout my practice: the collision of unexpected materials and languages. In Água e óleo não se misturam (GlogauAIR, Berlin, 2025) I worked with the tension between oil and acrylic on the same surface, incompatible substances forced into coexistence. RE|FRACTION carries that inquiry further. Water remains at the centre, but its role shifts. Here the collision is between water and lens, water as the element that intercepts and reframes the image before it even exists.

The project results in a photographic series, a cycle of watercolours on paper, and a process video that follows the image through the distortions.

Artist's Statement

The residency at the Atelier-Stiftung Kunst und Natur was an excellent experience, both artistically and through living and working in such a special place.

The farm offers a remarkable calm and beauty that makes a true immersion possible: in the surroundings and in one's own work. I was also impressed by the generous studio space and the very well equipped living quarters, which together provide excellent conditions for artistic work and for everyday life. Dr. Birgit and Thomas gave every support that was needed while at the same time leaving us the freedom to develop our projects in our own way and at our own pace.

My project, Re|Fraction, found an ideal environment for its development here. The surrounding nature offered perfect places for the photographic part of the work, while the time, the silence and the space allowed me to carry out my experiments with the necessary concentration and to develop the final watercolours. It was especially rewarding to see the project completed and presented in a final exhibition at the end of the residency.

As part of a group of three artists, many spontaneous encounters also arose, from shared meals to conversations about our working processes. It is a residency that truly offers a perfect space for concentration, experimentation and artistic development, surrounded by nature and held by a thoughtful, well-structured setting.

- Mirela Fioresy