Expressionist Portraits from Cuba
Photo Feature by Ernesto Gonzalez Diaz
HAVANA TIMES — Expressionist photography is photography that uses the medium as a personal language to express feelings and inner visions, challenging the conventions of realistic and documentary representation. While documentary photography seeks objectivity and testimony, expressionism pursues subjective interpretation, raw emotional impact, sometimes even the grotesque. The aim of expressionist photography is not to show reality “as it is,” but how it feels or how it is interpreted—that is, an emotional distortion of reality.
This photographic style, applied primarily to portraiture, draws direct inspiration from Expressionism, an artistic movement of the early twentieth century (in painting, cinema, and literature) that reacted against Impressionism and Realism by seeking to convey inner emotions and the artist’s subjectivity. To achieve this, the photographer employs devices such as heavy makeup, grimaces, and facial expressions capable of communicating sensations, states of mind, and emotions.
