'broken'

Dave Coba’s nudes series „broken“ was created by photographing his models in front of broken, partly “blind” mirrors. Aside from a correction of brightness and contrast the pictures were not altered. This “naturalness” is an essential aspect of his technique.

Thematically we’re talking about dreamlike rapture – self awareness in a reality that’s altered, twisted, broken and reflected in an enigmatic way. It means a lot to me that the models wanted to see themselves as they were portrayed: They played their dicive part by “putting themselves into the mirror” The photographer documents.

States of tension between the “whole and broken”, the “obvious and the ambiguous” (broken obviousness/reality) between “direct and indirect”, nearness and distance are growing out of this created dream world. Thus the pictures are playing with ambiguity, raise questions, dreamlike.

Dave Coba’s working method is accordingly: “Pictures like these mustn’t be technically planned/constructed… this would mean superficiality.”

Similar to the “écriture automatique” the series “broken” emerged spontaneously from the unconscious in a subtle mood of day-dreaming. Getting to this state of mind often involves more energy than the photography itself.

“Thus the pictures are dreams: never obvious, never finally explainable – full of inexhaustible profundity – more than anything planned could ever produce. Not even I myself know all what it’s made of.”