‘I am fascinated by faces. For me, every face is a story waiting to be discovered and read. By studying the architecture of a face, I feel as though I am discovering an inner landscape, peeking into someone's world and uncovering fragments of a new storyline - whether it's a novel, a poem or a short story.

In my recent work I play with combining disparate facial features and angles, distorting and reassembling them to compose my own narratives. This act of creation feels like writing a novel with borrowed plot lines and emotions, shaping something entirely new in the process.

Instead of the traditional on-the-wall display of framed artworks, I wanted to experiment with an interactive presentation of the works that pulls the viewer into the story-telling process. Presenting the portraits on rotating, multi-sided supports invites the viewer to interact with the work, like a reader flipping pages in a book, absorbed into a fascinating human story.’

www.petrovamaria.com.au

Exhibition photography: Narelle Wilson