There’s always a bright side to everything, even a heartbreak. Photographer Hsin Wang proves it by extracting beauty from pain through arts. De-Selfing is a touching, personal photo series about a broken heart.
Hsin Wang is a Taiwanese photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She visualises her personal stories through photography by incorporating everyday objects into unique, symbolic images. She is known for the use of muted colours and the manipulation of negative space.
Following her breakup of a seven-year relationship, Wang re-staged her grief through the use of photographs, by giving presence to the heartache caused by a lost love. Her series called De-Selfing demonstrates the masochistic and uneasy ways in which we deal with a lost love.
The set features the photographer herself intwined with a variety of male models. She keeps her face hidden so that we can relate and become enmeshed in our own personal heartaches.
“Ultimately, De-Selfing allows us to relish the exquisite agony of being left behind, before asking that we let it go, accept the blow, and take our first few steps on along a solitary road.I have been using my photography to create a visual representation of my feelings about romantic relationships, called De-Selfing.”
“After a major break up, I deeply believed that if I didn’t transform myself into a more likeable woman, there would be no more happiness in my life. So I started to dispose of everything that defined the old “me”-things I did, said, and even believed. I chose to “de-self” myself in order to please potential romantic partners.”
“Creating the images in De-Selfing has been a therapeutic process for me. Since starting the project, I have picked myself up piece by piece, gotten my confidence back, and been able to hear my own voice again.”
” Eventually everyone will leave me. I will leave everyone. Everyone will leave everyone.”
