Palace of Illusions, 2012

Description

From the series Sans Souci.

Sans Souci is literally translated from French as ‘without worries’. Shot in an abandoned mansion on an undisclosed location, Sans Souci creates an ambiguous space in which to explore notions of beauty, memory and history. The series of ten prints presents a compelling portrait of a place in time and a way of life at once fading and being reinvented with each new season. Poetic focus on relics of an indelible past draws from the viewer a sensation or memory, allowing fluid narratives to form in a visual setting of stasis and decay.

Making historical reference to the summer palace of the same name of Prussian King Frederick the Great, who wished to live out his personal and artistic interests there ‘sans souci’, Tawadey wanted to create his own palace of artistic interest and illusion through this inspiring residence.

“I have an inclination in my art to delve into history and recover the old, the tarnished, the rusted, the unnoticed and bring it back to life. To claim a ruin is often to exalt it,” says Tawadey. “Beauty is often hidden in the most unlikely of spaces and the series wants to uncover it, through the imagery of the mansion as an art object.”