BENNY DE GROVE

Traces with Faces

This series was conceived during my quest to capture details and forms around me to incorporate into my "Confessioni" series. For a period, I began photographing details everywhere I went. Before long, I found myself no longer focused on people or buildings during my travels but instead on the ground, tree trunks, stones, shadows, and light.

This shift in focus transformed the way I looked, thought, and felt. It became both an expansion and affirmation of my worldview. While wandering through Palermo, observing the stones, shadows, and trees, I realized that much of our imagination is born from what we unconsciously absorb from birth. It exists around us, but we often fail to see it. This phenomenon seems inherent to humanity; even in prehistoric times, we had to quickly detect figures and forms as a survival mechanism.

Certain details reminded me of artists and styles like Picasso, Miró, and even science fiction characters. Was this an unconscious influence of all the art I had seen? Probably. But I prefer to think of it in reverse. Haven't we, since childhood, unconsciously absorbed these existing details and later, influenced by this unintentional storage of detail, processed them into art without realizing that we were influenced by precisely those details that were spontaneously imprinted on our retinas?

Of course, I see details in some images that others might not see, and often they see something entirely different that I missed. This is the tension inherent in these images. We all perceive differently, and consequently, we think, interpret, and testify differently from one another.

In this series, I offer the viewer a glimpse into my perspective on things. Absorbing all these elements strengthened my philosophy that it is impossible to fully understand or change the world or others. Our unconscious way of storing images, and by extension, thoughts, words, and gestures, each in our own way, means that we can never fall back on identical thought patterns in a discussion, conversation, argument, or event as someone else. Thus, we can never fully understand or (pre)judge another.

Following this line of thought, it seems impossible to change someone's philosophy, religion, atheism, orientation, or any other aspect. Attempting to do so would be a crime. Cultures should not adapt to one another but coexist in synergy. Cultures can interact respectfully and function perfectly alongside each other, evolving into better humans.

My goal with these images is to showcase one way of seeing without imposing it. We are all inclined to overlook a world that is an inexhaustible source of inspiration, philosophy, knowledge, and (self)reflection.