Popel Coumou - Whispering spaces 24 December 2005 - 25 January 2006 Foam_Young talent!

Popel Coumou graduated last year from the Rietveld Academie with a series of picturesque photos of bedrooms. Imaginary rooms, fashioned by Coumou from paper and clay into two-dimensional collages and then captured with an analogue camera.  

Popel is fascinated by the sense of mystery that pervades these domains which – when unoccupied – seem so empty. Places which are closed to outsiders, but where individuals can retreat into themselves and give emotion a free rein.
Whereas the first series of bedrooms features typically human elements like a vase of flowers or a bedside lamp, later images become gradually more abstract and empty. Every hint of human presence has vanished except for a disarranged sheet. The details disappear and the space is turned into abstract swathes of colour with only the merest suggestion of a bed or a window.

In these frozen images photography seems to be challenging the art of painting, creating an intriguing tension.