One of my favorite photographs in the current Life Framer exhibition at Pictura is from Alex Llovet’s project Not About Lockdown. The artist has taken just a few elements — a girl, a box and a painting- and has woven them together to create an image that is visually and emotionally complex.

Even without knowing the story behind the image, I find it intriguing. Is the child sitting on the box holding a portrait of herself? Visually, the two morph together to create a strange amalgam of a living, breathing body, and an inanimate figure whose form is paralyzed in paint. I see this in the contrast between the gentle articulation of the living child’s toes and the fixed stillness of the figure’s arms in the framed portrait.

Later, I found out that this is the artist’s daughter, and that she is holding an old family portrait of her great grandfather. What does it mean, this compression of multiple generations into a single image? I like that the image doesn’t give me a clear answer. Rather, it keeps my eyes and my mind moving.

- Mia

Alex Llovet​’s image ​‘The Time Between’, was part of the shortlist for the Life Framer competition category ​‘Youthhood’. Chosen by juror Holly Andres