Further explore the exhibition’s theme of semi-visibility through a slow-looking exercise related to this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Total Transparency Filter (Portrait of N)," from 2017, is a photograph by Stephanie Syjuco measuring 40 by 30 inches that transforms the standard pose of a photo-studio portrait into something that feels mysterious. Though it is a color photo, nearly everything in this studio portrait is black, white, or gray. In it, a slim figure sits in a chair in three-quarter profile facing toward the right with their legs crossed and hands resting on their lap. The figure is entirely covered by a semitransparent gray-and-white checked cloth. Behind the figure is a charcoal-gray backdrop. Bright white light comes from out of view on the right, which creates a dramatic gradient on the backdrop, from light gray on the right to black on the left, and it leaves the figure’s back in shadow.

While the cloth obscures the figure’s contours and facial features, there is enough light from the side to distinguish their sleeveless white shirt and dark slacks. Dark hair falls to their shoulders. The only apparent color in the image is a hint of the light brown skin of their left arm and their face that is semi-visible through the cloth. Smooth along the top of the head, the cloth falls in pleats and ripples, and with each, the orderly pattern of squares warps into rows of diamonds and back again to squares where the cloth settles against the figure’s body. Plenty of headroom is left above the figure, but their legs are out of view from mid-calf down. It becomes impossible to determine just how large the cloth truly is.

The title and imagery in this work may be in reference to the digital image-editing software Photoshop. In Photoshop, this gray-and-white checked pattern indicates areas that are transparent and is often the default background offered. It evokes neutrality, a clean slate with no color on which to layer digital images. Transparency is essential to making composite images where objects are added in layers but portions of the lower layers need to remain visible. The eraser tool in Photoshop will reveal this gray-and-white checked pattern as the tool is moved across the image.

Syjuco has upended the notion of a transparency background layer by placing it over the person who should be the focus of the artwork. Instead of the checked pattern indicating transparency, where the figure beneath it should be fully visible, the cloth is made to mostly conceal. The figure is rendered anonymous, which could feel like protection from an unwanted gaze but also like erasure.

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