VLADISLAVS GOĻIKOVS
This series was started in 2014, and each work contains 29 aged passport photos of me. I never met my grandfather Vladislavs Goļikovs (1929–1980) while he was alive. He passed away nine years before I was born. I can tell from the photos that he was a handsome man. His face is so familiar and warm. The piece is based on my grandfather's passport photo, taken 66 years ago. This photograph has been loved, and I cherish it too. The paper has worn thin – touched by time and human hands, it has become something more like a museum relic, an artefact of love. In this picture, he is 29 years young, but the folds and scratches on the surface of the photograph, hardened and cracked over time, resemble wrinkles – as if life itself, with all its weight, was etched onto his face. The life he experienced but had no knowledge of at the time this photo was taken. I am still young, and my skin is smooth just like his was 66 years ago. “Vladislavs Goļikovs” is a series of miniature works in which I have turned my passport photo into history. Based on his photo I recreate the signs of aging onto my own image. This piece is a deeply personal meeting of two people who were close yet never met each other. My photos will most likely stay forever “young” or will disappear altogether along with the data storage device they are kept in. Nobody will be able to carry my picture in their breast pocket for the simple reason the picture won’t exist at all. I am leaving physical evidence of me having existed. Everything is new and old at the same time although the first work is separated from the last one by eleven years of my life.
