Madame Peripetie

©Madam Peripetie [pseudonym]

Péripétie, from Geek περιπετεῖα (peripeteia): means usually in the epic poem, a novel, a piece of theater, anything that changes the situation and takes in an action, the situation of the characters and the related interest, a kind of revolution.

… it means a turning point and shows how much photography changed my live and my perception of the world. - Madam Peripetie

Exploring possibilities is both a source and a consequence of creativity. With time that exploration evolves the vision of the artist into a path that defines his/her personal style. Those times, when anything is possible and there are no boundaries, are one of the most intriguing phases in the career of a young photographer. I had the pleasure to learn about the work of one young photographer exploring her path to be the artist that will be: Madame Peripetie , a photographer located in Germany.

Madame Peripetie was kind to share a description of her background and photographic interest as well as the inspiration for some of projects she has worked on.

My pictures cover lots of different themes and styles. I am trying things out, exploring various fields of photography as it helps me to understand this medium and myself and how certain things could appear on the film or on the chip. Since I started taking pictures I was overwhelmed with surrealistic depiction of reality, where you are allowed to invent your own “outsiderisms” and “strangities”, without needing to explain them and you just play different roles just like in a theater. I studied applied linguistics before but I knew I was at the wrong place and something was missing all the time. I’ve always had these weirdest dreams and loved daydreaming a lot and I wished myself I could somehow depict these small dream worlds. - Madame Peripetie

©Madam Peripetie

Dark illumiation is a photo series I started by accident, walking home at night through the dark park. The only source of light was the sky that illuminated the trees and made them stand out of the darkness like individuals that got stranded and had nowhere to go. I noticed that every tree has its own posture, its own personality - some kind of a second life after dawn. I wanted to depict them as individualists, personalities with different lifestyles and characters. I was using a medium strong flash to expose the structure of the leaves/needles and branches on the one hand but hide the background on the other. Some of the trees are two characters blended together constructing something new.- Madame Peripetie

©Madam Peripetie

[from the Interiors series]

Interiors is a ‘place exploration’ with the camera that slides through the space, the corners the floor and explores it bit by bit. It’s similar to a scanning process of the blind person who tries to get a feeling of security by touching different objects or faces. It’s a kind of touching the place bit by bit with the camera and ‘explaining’ it to somebody who has never been there without showing the whole room or revealing everything straightaway.-Madame Peripetie

©Madam Peripetie

[from the anti-portraits series]

I like my white anti-portraits series quite a lot. It’s my tribute to dada and its anti-art statement. It’s not important who the depicted people are - what is crucial, is the process of disembodiment that takes place by covering the whole face with different objects. All of the sudden you cant see the face that expresses personality feelings and emotions- it becomes a new construction - a kind of sculpture or anti-faceless portrait - an anti-portrait. It’s an experiment with the form and structure, a kind of revulsion and rebellion against the modern society where everybody looks the same and become a part of a mass-culture. The series is developing and new pictures are coming soon. It became my desire to create my own disturbing worlds and spaces and wanted the viewers to react to my work with anxiety, tension and puzzlement. -Madame Peripetie

I don’t like repeating myself in any way although it happens that a certain idea is invading my mind over and over again and I feel a strong overwhelming desire to implement it as soon as possible. But the most significant thing is to tell a story to make it feel like something had already happened before the picture and would happen even after that. The pictures need to have certain suspense in them and always a slightly macabre tone. Crime scenes, surrealism, pop art and film noir strongly combined with myriad of pieces of clothing and accessories - it is that what makes them captivating and irresistible. -Madame Peripetie