For her first solo show in Saudi Arabia, photographer Jowhara AlSaud presents work from her series ‘Out of Line’, a body of work that began as an exploration of censorship and its effects on visual communication.
Photographs of intimate social images of family and friends, manually manipulated through fastidious etchings on negative, reveal figures depleted of all facial features. Yet, in spite of the absence of identifiable features, the images appear intimate and inviting, even charming and carefree, while still demonstrating the complex cultural constraints that govern the depiction of people in Saudi Arabia.
The result is a succession of collective family portraits of the viewer at large, achieved through a process of identification and appropriation. So much is revealed by what is concealed.