Afterimages (2025)

A collaborative series by Karolina Dema & Virgile Demo, Afterimages explores the fluid nature of visual memory—how images linger, transform, and dissolve over time. The process itself mirrors this idea: through image transfer from magazines and layers of oil paint, each piece undergoes a constant transition, shifting between photographic precision and painterly abstraction.

The title can also be understood litterally, just like the afterimage that remains on the eye after looking away. A nod to a disappearing world, whose memory must be preserved in a time of systematic destruction and orchestrated amnesia.

Thematically, the works reflect on cultural fragments, cinematic nostalgia, and political urgency, where text and imagery fuse into moments of recognition and reinterpretation. Words emerge like echoes from the past, blending into scenes that feel both familiar and elusive.

 Afterimages is an invitation to consider what stays with us—what imprints itself onto our collective and personal consciousness—and how meaning continues to evolve through time and memory.