I, in the Plural

I, in the Plural is a staged self-portrait series in which one body repeatedly assumes different visual identities. Through light, colour, props, scenography, humour and performance, David Orešič explores the self not as a stable subject, but as an image

I, in the Plural

I, in the Plural is a staged self-portrait project in which I use my own body not to confirm a stable identity, but as a material through which different forms of visibility can be constructed and tested.

The series begins from the recognisable conventions of portraiture: a face, a body and a gaze directed towards the camera. From there, this apparent stability is gradually disturbed. Light divides the body into conflicting chromatic fields; objects alter its proportions and gestures; scenographic structures contain or expose it; masks, shadows and optical devices generate temporary characters. The same physical body remains present throughout, yet each photograph proposes another possible version of the subject.

My background in lighting design and scenography is integral to the work. Light is not used merely to illuminate the scene or create atmosphere. It functions as an active material capable of producing, fragmenting or transforming the photographic body. Props and spatial constructions operate in a similar way: rather than illustrating an idea, they become partners in the performance and determine how the body can appear before the camera.

Humour, irony and absurdity are essential to the project. They allow me to question the authority traditionally associated with the photographic portrait and with the figure of the artist himself. The beard, the theatrical gesture, the exaggerated pose or the deliberately improbable situation repeatedly destabilise any attempt to read the images as solemn declarations of identity.

Although these works are self-portraits, I do not consider them primarily autobiographical. What interests me is the mechanism through which an image becomes believable and meaningful: how little is required for a body to appear as another character, how quickly a gesture becomes a sign, and how strongly the viewer participates in completing what the photograph proposes.

For me, the photograph is therefore not necessarily the final form of the work. It is the first materialisation of an idea that may later continue as an installation, a spatial intervention, a composition of light or another visual structure. What remains constant is not the material form, but the continuity of the question: how is an image constructed, and at what point does the viewer begin to believe in the identity it creates?