group show face off, vorona gallery, berlin

I am pleased to be the poster girl of my next group show in Berlin, Face Off, a group exhibition bringing together artists from diverse cultural contexts: Anastasia Tory (Ukraine–United Kingdom), Andreas Geissel (Germany), Cristine Balarine (Brazil-Italy), Joshua Goode (USA), Gabriel (Germany), Sergio Gomez (Mexico-USA), and Jens Joneleit (Germany).

Gaea, 170x190cm, Acrylics and pastels on raw cotton canvas

For centuries, the portrait has remained one of the central genres of art. Kings and aristocrats commissioned formal portraits to affirm status and power; artists depicted themselves and their loved ones in an attempt to preserve a gaze, a gesture, a presence in time. The portrait was not merely an image of a person, but a tool of memory, authority, and identity.

A fundamental shift occurred in the early nineteenth century, when photography assumed the role of preserving the human face for posterity. In the twenty-first century, this function has been fully transferred to the cameras of mobile phones: the realistic portrait is created instantly and loses its sense of exclusivity.

It is at this point that art enters a new field of inquiry. If outward appearance no longer requires artistic mediation, what constitutes a portrait today?

Where is the boundary between face and image, between recognizability and inner state?

How can a person (or the self) be described through means removed from the conventions of realistic portraiture?

The exhibition Face Off unfolds as an artistic investigation of these questions.

The works on view reveal a broad range of approaches: from distortion and fragmentation to symbolic and emotional languages. Here, the face ceases to function as a mirror of physical likeness and instead becomes a site of projection, confrontation, and play. It may appear as a mask, a trace, a sign, a state, or an unresolved question.

The title Face Off refers to a moment of direct confrontation: between viewer and image, artist and the tradition of portraiture, the real and the imagined. It evokes the act of “removing the mask,” when the face loses its social function and transforms into a carrier of inner, often vulnerable and unsettling content.

FACE OFF

Curated by Jenia Yanes

Vorona Galerie, Friedbergstraße 12, 14057 Berlin

Dates

Exhibition: 20 February – 20 March 2026

Opening: Friday, 20 February 2026, 6:00 PM