Oleg Dou

Another face

I still have this same fear and prefer to hide behind the camera. So becoming a photographer works as therapy for me. Time has passed and I’ve noticed a transformation. I myself have become the one whom I had always been afraid of — and this is the essence of my artistic path.

In my earlier series, I did photographs of kids with masks and masquerade clothes, but they were always unhappy. With my new project, I want to tell the story of myself as an artist. The story about the person who experienced a kind of violence as a kid and then got addicted to doing the same thing to other people.

The project was inspired by and named after the book, «The Face of Another» by the Japanese writer Kobo Abe. The main character was depressed as his face had been damaged in a fire. One day he got a chance to obtain a new look — an artificial face of another person. It worked well in the beginning, but then the new face started to control him and changed his mind.

My project «Another Face» has two parallel stories. The first one is something common for me — a series of large format portrait photographs. The faces are covered with paper and drawings.

The second story is a series of pseudo-documentary photographs I made using pictures of myself from a family album. These photos were originally taken in late 80’s when I was around five. At that age, I saw the film version of «The Man Who Laughs» (the novel was by Victor Hugo) and I was shocked by the appearance of the main character who was working in the circus. His face was marred when he was a little baby — with scars running from his mouth to his ears. This look stuck in my head for years. Something similar to this «smile» appeared in my childhood drawings and in my artistic works later. In this new project both my heroes and myself appear as frightening clowns. I used to draw flowers when I was a little child. But then something «scary and beautiful» became my passion and was later placed at the center of my artistic works...

Oleg Dou adout «Another Face»