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The Great Wall of China not only hides kilometers and kilometers of land, but also multitude of ethnic groups, culture and beliefs.
José Manuel Ramírez exhibits at La Casa de la Provincia of Seville, “China, face to face,” a good mirror of soul.
What is this woman looking at?
What dreams are hidden behind these eyes? At whom is this old man with catlike look smiling?
What occupation probably unrewarding and hard made the fingernails of this young girl dirty?
Those are the questions that come up in front of faces like these, which compose 28 images of “China, face to face.”
I didn’t want a distraction over the eyes of the person. I didn’t want the audience to get
distracted by bright colors of background or something like that, for example.
And what I wanted was that she/he would pay attention carefully to the person, to what I am telling
to the eyes, to their gaze, and to the faces and that she/he would look and reflect herself/himself on the characters in some way
and for that everything in the background has to be abstract, right?
Photography is to look, but also it’s to reflect oneself on the other, on the face of the other as a mirror of own soul.
Straight and instant portraits, taken at the moment of encounter, on street, without affectation neither pose.
You have to earn the confidence of the people in a few seconds, and that is complicated, quite complicated,
but once you notice one tiny gesture maybe, a wink or something, you know that there is complicity,
and you can take that picture face to face.
The secret language of the eyes; of the other and of himself.
That is “China, face to face,” the latest work of the Sevillian, José Manuel Ramírez.
The platitude says all Chinese look alike. These images show that in reality, they look like us.