In this complex construction by Fernando Lemos, the focus of attention reaches beyond the wall through the extension of the floorboards, on which a metallic structure is supported – an orthopaedic arm immobiliser – with the ballerina’s legs gesturing a position that is in some way harmonious. On the lower part of the image, we see the ballerina’s feet once again, photographed on a different scale.

These motifs are fixed in the mismatched outline of various planes that somehow serve as a frame for the subject of the photograph.

However, the deliberate repositioning of the usual horizontal placement of the orthopaedic structure to an upright position could indicate a sensual or erotic reading, with an imagery linked to surrealism and its transgressive practice associated with desire.

The combination of multiple exposures on one same negative is a recurrent mechanism in Fernando Lemos’s work, suggesting ambiguous readings, in an operational practice associated with a plural discourse of visual coordinates. In this case, we can clearly see the subversion of the spatial dimension contained in the different planes of the image.

José Oliveira
2022