The idea of origin – symbolized by the sun – is a focus on Denise Lobonț’s photographs, in which she captures sunbathers on a popular beach on the Black Sea. The artist is interested in this pose of total surrender of the sunbathers to the sun’s properties. But what lies behind this blissful looking meditation is questioned. Shot during the lockdown caused by the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the photographs address a sense of freedom. But human existence is completely interfused with nature – the sun on our closed eyelids will remind us of this fact, even if a virus wreaking have on our lives has caused us to forget it. But the holiday mood that the photographs initially convey is deceptive: the focus of her inquiry revolves around our exposure to nature, which we usually think of as so idyllic, and how can this affect and even instill fear in us. Lobonț demonstrates this exposure trough traces that sunlight leaves on the skin in the form of sunburns – like light painting in photography.
