The concept of the doppelganger is nothing new in art. The idea of a “second self” has appeared in literature, cinema and painting for centuries, but became particularly popular after Freud explored the concept in 1919. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is considered essential reading in the English literature canon and one of the key titles of gothic horror, its story exploring the evil nature hidden behind a seemingly benign exterior. In the art world, René Magritte’s Surrealist paintings, like Not to Be Reproduced (1937), often featured uncanny clones of the same figure.
In 2024, over 100 years since Freud, the concept has taken on a life of its own. Journalist and activist Naomi Klein won the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction with Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, which explored her experience of being mixed up for a woman with the same name but radically different views. The internet was taken by storm by endless celebrity lookalike competitions, with Timothée Chalamet entering as himself in Washington Square Park. At the end of the year, the BBC published an article titled “Why we’re ‘living in the golden age of the doppelganger’.” In an era where everyone can alter images and post an edited version of our lives online, each person can create a “double” of themselves in an instant.
Jana Šantavá’s photographs tap into haunting and unsettling ideas of human duality. The artist’s latest series, Echoes of Identity, employs multiple of the same figure to bring the contrast between internal worlds and external environments to life. Her images feel like film stills, creating an eerie and suspenseful narrative that the viewer is left to fill out for themselves. The protagonist is always facing away from the lens, caught peering around a curtain or gazing into a mirror.
The images are ambiguous in their location in time and place, a typewriter or military uniform prompting questions around where, and when, the picture is located. Šantavá has received numerous prestigious awards, including a Gold Medal at the Budapest International Foto Awards 2023 and a Silver Prize at the World Photo Annual 2023. Her work has been exhibited in renowned galleries across Europe, including Paris, Milan, Budapest, Athens, and Bratislava. In 2024, she presented a solo exhibition at the Slovak Institute in Berlin.
Words: Emma Jacob
All images courtesy of the artist.
