The figures are distorted – not through digital processes or manipulation in the darkroom, but instead, before the image reaches the film plane – through the use of a flexible mirror. The artist bends the mirror, casting varying degrees of distortion. She then photographs the reflections of her subjects using a traditional 35 MM single-lens reflex camera.

Sáfrán says, “The concept came to me while walking in downtown Salt Lake City. I was watching the distorted images of city buildings as they were reflected by the mirrored glass of buildings that I was passing. As I walked, the continually morphing images held my visual attention. I free associated from reflections of buildings within buildings to the reflection of my own image in my mirror at home. I considered distortion as a factor not limited to the surface of reflection, but one that might relate to the viewer’s self-perception.”

Aniko Sáfrán’s photographs are symbolic representations of the distorted images perceived by each of us . . . either in the media, the mirror, or in memory. The body is often presented in a way that reflects an unobtainable ideal or otherwise inaccurate depiction of form. In magazines and on billboards, models are artificially enhanced to create a vision of the ideal form. The more subtle the distortion, the more believable the misrepresentation may be. In these photographs, the abstraction of form varies from the subtle to the extreme.