Cindy Sirko

Cindy Sirko presents a series of square color paintings. Color is the dominant element in her work, not merely an illustrative addition to the form. The colorfulness of the pictures is just as subjective and disturbing to the photographic way of seeing as all the other technical features: the sharpness is unevenly distributed in the picture, double exposures and »blurred« photos are frequent, the poor resolution produces almost impressionistic-looking pictures. The reason for these »peculiarities« lies in the use of a »Diana« camera. This is a cheap plastic camera, similar to the »Instamatic« camera; only it is loaded with roll film and has three different apertures and three distance symbols, the lens is also made of plastic. Cindy Sirko plays with these technical (im)possibilities and contrasts them with a laboratory technique. If we allow ourselves to enter this strange, somewhat distorted world, these images develop a suggestive power that is very capable of changing our aesthetic concepts and our usual ideas of the photographic image.
from: FOTOHOF Info, Issue 1/1982