Maria Aurelia Riese / Paris Photo / November 2025

Masks

Passengers of Time

‘My work is highly personal. Fuelled by family life in Vienna and the feeling that I have lived before. Memories deeply rooted from my grandmother’s apartment. I am intrigued by Austria’s folklore, music and fairy tales. Together all of those experiences add to the flavour of my work. Sometimes inspiration comes through sound, colour or  the texture of an old piece of paper. I often use experimental printing and add personal words. Now and then I repurpose my photographs to give them new interpretations. Occasionally a story is born out of the discovery of a new process. My subconscious weaves all  threads together. My books and prints are about giving those threads a visual voice. I measure the success of my work by how it makes me feel when I look at it. I want to be captured in the same way as I remember it from childhood in Vienna. I hope to bring this across and draw the viewer closer into my world of the ‘Unheimlich’.

For the artist, MASKS act like filters – selectively including or excluding certain sincerities. But what happens when MASKS become filters for both sides of reality? The real and the superimposed? MASKS facilitate the transition from one to the other; but how do they transform tragedy into comedy? How can ugliness be transformed into beauty? Can fear unveil surface ugliness, revealing the beauty that lies deeper within each human?

MASKS are photographic portraits, which have been collected over a period of ten years. They are not consciously designed or controlled but they are no more than a technical effect produced by a printer. I call them ‘ghosts on films’, as they journey through the printer that has now been transformed into a time-machine.

During the process, the artist became aware of the communication and conscious of another reality that distinguishes each character – at first disguised by the colours buried in layered shadows – until she sees the story emerging. Then the image begins to draw her in closer. 

Each character must stand out at first sight and look strong in flesh as well as on the print, having a soul-life of its own.  The films hold the visual memory that remains intact after the positive photographic image has been printed. The pictures become the residue of the printing process itself, which she physically re-layer into new compositions of creatures. The film’s registration plays a crucial part in the creative success of the process.