║ Ulrike Thiele ║

© Ulrike Thiele, Untitled #1, from the series Im Garten, 2001

© Ulrike Thiele, Untitled #3, from the series Im Garten, 2001

More of Ulrike’s work here

║ Gabriela Morawetz ║

© Gabriela Morawetz, Closer To Me Than Myself, 2009

© Gabriela Morawetz, Closer To Me Than Myself, 2009

To see more of Gabriela’s work click here

║ Carmen Calvo ║

© Carmen Calvo, Tubérculo Metamorfosis 1, 2008

mixed media, photography

© Carmen Calvo, Había Desaparecido, 2006

mixed media, photography

More of Carmen’s work can be seen here

║ Béatrice Helg ║

© Béatrice Helg, Expansion III, 2007

© Béatrice Helg, Profondeurs VIII, 2008

More of Béatrice’s work can be seen here

║ Laura Aguilar ║

© Laura Aguilar, Nature Self Portrait #7, 1996

© Laura Aguilar, Center #73, 2001

║ Hannah Wilke ║

© Hannah Wilke, Portrait of the Artist with her Mother, Selma Butler, 1978-81

© Hannah Wilke, Intra Venus No. 4, 1992-93

“The motif of symbolic woundedness, as tied to the social experience of femininity, prefigured Wilke’s development of physical illness, a lymphoma diagnosed in 1987 and around which the Intra-Venus series was articulated. While Wilke’s work from the 1970s suggests that the “wounds” of femininity, as experienced in patriarchal culture, might one day be removed or transformed, the same could unfortunately not be said of her disease, which proved fatal in 1993. Besides the psychoanalytic connection between the sight of the female body and (the threat of ) castration, it is possible that Wilke’s visual association of womanhood with woundedness might have stemmed from witnessing her mother’s breast cancer. In effect, Wilke began to perform nude in 1970, after her mother’s mastectomy.12 Wilke’s exposure to her mother’s “real wound” may thus have inspired the analogy she drew in turning the hidden, psychic wounds of femininity into meaningful physical marks. That woundedness should appear as a motif to figure both visible and invisible pain is not surprising, considering the  ncommunicable nature of suffering. If pain, both moral and physical, is pre-symbolic,13 changing, and ungraspable in nature, then the transmission of such experience needs to be translated into a clearly identifiable form. From this perspective, the motif of the wound not only emerged in Wilke’s practice as the physical consequence of illness, but also was employed as an active, signifying mark, which visibly indicated the non-figurable pain that brought it into being.”

Tamar Tembeck

More of Hannah’s work can be seen here

║ Rui Calçada Bastos ║

© Rui Calçada Bastos, Untitled, from the series Life in a Bush of Ghosts, 2008

© Rui Calçada Bastos, Untitled, from the series Life in a Bush of Ghosts, 2008

“Rui Calçada Bastos also exploits astute readings of the early conceptual artists. He talks of “revealing the City’s intimate histories and continuous memory” and “the sensitivities that become attached to spaces”. That is a large plateful since Berlin is certainly a city that abounds with histories – some are intimate to the story of the city itself and other to the individuals who live there – but Calçada Bastos´ intention is to focus on particulars, to dig them out by attention to detail. He avoids the large stories: Berlin of the Second World War, Berlin of the Fall of the Wall, Berlin of the night life of the neo expressionists, from Fetting, Salome etc running on down until it ran out, Berlin with its Beuysian Academy, Berlin with the presence of Michael Werner, Sigmar Polke, Jorg Immendorf, and Markus Lupertz, Berlin of the spy films, of Lotte Lenya, of the Air Lift, of Willy Brandt, Berlin of May 68, of cheap property, of artist studios, of immigrants. He tries to find more what Cezanne called les petites sensations, the glimpses of things that suggest the city’s sensitivity, its moods and rhythms, the soundscapes, the sense of roaming the city, the accumulation of visual knowledge that finally allows us to feel at ease, to somehow belong.”

Kevin Power

To see more of Rui’s work click here

║ Tibor Gyenis ║

© Tibor Gyenis, Area, 2004

© Tibor Gyenis, Self, 2007

║ Gábor Gerhes ║

© Gábor Gerhes, Addition Falsed, 1999

© Gábor Gerhes, Solved Problems Before Unsolved Ones, 2006

© Gábor Gerhes, Can I Believe in Something, Which Can Not Believe in Me, 2006

More of Gábor’s work can be seen here

║ Kudász Gábor Arion ║

© Kudász Gábor Arion, Candle, Olimpic Park, from the series Green Area, 2006

© Kudász Gábor Arion, Urns, Farkasrét, from the series Green Area, 2005

“Looking at a map, parks are nice little green squares in the body of the city. They can be looked at as areas for future developments: factories, shopping centers and housing projects.
During a period of two years I documented decaying public areas in and around Budapest – before more profitable investments swallow them. I also tried to discover Wilderness on these footholds.

Parks are places of joy and revitalization. Parks are designed to evoke an imaginary view of the Garden of Eden, but urbanization is quite about the opposite. Cities were invented to escape the forces of Nature by creating controlled and calculable surroundings. In such an enviroment a park is a heart of nostalgia even if its origin is not natural in any way. Parks were created by people to simbolize the idea of Nature, but conquered and stripped from its forces. At the same time refugees who proved to be unable to fit in the new environment, or who are expelled from society, start to inhabit the green areas.

Some return to a place of voluntary exile, the artificial Paradise.”

More of Kudász’s work can be seeb here

║ Markus Georg ║

© Markus Georg, Eiffel Tower,  from the series The Power of Images

© Markus Georg, Stonehenge, from the series The Power of Images

More of Markus’ work can be seen here

║ Georg Parthen ║

© Georg Parthen, Dorf, from the series Landscapes, 2007

© Georg Parthen, Kuppeln, from the series Landscapes, 2007

More of Georg’s work can be seen here

║ Peter Wildanger ║

© Peter Wildanger, 02220010, from the series Innen-Aussen, 2005

© Peter Wildanger, 10040042, from the series Innen-Aussen, 2005

More of Peter’s work can be seen here

║ Michael Visocchi ║

© Michael Visocchi, Untilted, 2005

assembled sculpture photographed in North East Scotland

© Michael Visocchi, Gnomon, 2004

constructed drawing placed in the landscape in North East Scotland

To see more of Michael’s work click here

║ Carrie Will ║

© Carrie Will, from the series I Am Redundant

© Carrie Will, Rikki and Carrie, Fire Island, from the series I Am Redundant

“I am redundant, half of a whole, a freak, identical and lucky. The relationship I have with my twin sister is tightly woven, beautifully strange and difficult to explain. This has led me to explore a visual language that articulates the intimacy and the oddity of being a twin.  Having been subjected to stares and double takes my whole life, I use photography to exaggerate the gaze of others and to illustrate the interconnectedness of our identity.  It is difficult to see yourself as an individual when no one else does. My photographs aim at grasping the idea that I am one person as well as two and discovering what that looks like.”

To see more of Carrie’s work click here

║ Michal Grochowiak ║

© Michal Grochowiak, Untitled #3, from the series Silence, 2007

© Michal Grochowiak, Untitled #7, from the series Silence, 2007

To see more of Micha’s work click here

║ Albert Palowski ║

© Albert Palowski, Buchprojekt, Irdelen

© Albert Palowski, Buchprojekt, Irdelen

To see more of Alber’s work click here

║ Benjamin Orion Rush ║

© Benjamin Orion rush, Kelvin, from the series Field Notes: Statements & Sketches

© Benjamin Orion rush, Kelvingrove Hall, from the series Field Notes: Statements & Sketches

“New England-born artist Benjamin Rush presents selections from two new ongoing bodies of work in “Field Notes: Statements & Sketches”. Central to the exhibition are images created in museums, libraries, and galleries both in the US and overseas. With a large format camera he seeks out surreal compositions of not only the display of these institutions, but also of these authoritative spaces in states of undress and change. The images stem from Rush’s fascination with the idea of knowledge, and the governance that possesses, frames and presents it.

The “Sketches” portion of the exhibition appear as selections from a body of 170-and-counting images that Rush has taken with a 1960’s Polaroid Land Camera. Rush says: “My life these past few years has been very unsettled and hectic, this more casual approach to image-making keeps me considering my environment. I’m always fascinated by how things look as photographs. I was curious how my interests and aesthetic might become evident without any particular intent across a large group of images taken over many years.”

These images describe Rush’s connection to the art and history of photography on many levels. “Frankly, I sometimes wonder if I’m just addicted to the way this particular process smells and behaves, ” he says. “Obviously it’s almost immediate but, unlike digital, when you peel the print open – the print is wet and fragile for some time, it’s a very tactile experience”.”

Source: Dakota Ridge Gallery

To see more of Benjamin’s work click here

║ Christina Maria Oswald ║

© Christina Maria Oswald, Untitled #4, from the series Being, 2006-07

© Christina Maria Oswald, Untitled #11, from the series Being, 2006-07

© Christina Maria Oswald, Untitled #14, from the series Being, 2006-07

To see more of Christina’s work click here

║ Jennifer Loeber ║

© Jennifer Loeber, Untitled #1, from the series Was-A-Shore

© Jennifer Loeber, Untitled #8, from the series Was-A-Shore

More of Jennifer’s work here

║ Kate Potter ║

© Kate Potter, Untitled #14, from the series Dad’s Things

© Kate Potter, Untitled #5, from the series Dad’s Things

© Kate Potter, Untitled #10, from the series Dad’s Things

To see more of Kate’s work click here

║ Philip Toledano ║

© Philip Toledano, Untitled, from the series Days with my Father

© Philip Toledano, Untitled, from the series Days with my Father

Toledano’s Days With My Father began as a web-based photo journal with texts, cataloging a poignant series of photographs of his father after his mother’s death with accompanying texts by the artist. The resulting work is an intensely powerful, heartwrenching and yet hopeful glimpse into his personal journey with his father, as they struggle to make sense of the latter’s gradual loss of memory as well as their remaining time together in the world.

I began shooting ‘Days with my father’ about a year ago, several months after my mother had died.
The purpose became clearer, as the project progressed.
It was to make a ‘still film’. An abstract assortment of linked recollections.
My father’s stories, and how he tells them. Aspects of personality that shine through the dim twilight of his fading memory. And new sides to him that have emerged, hidden for years in the strong shadow of parenthood.
I want to record all of this, before he goes. To document the love between us, and by reflection, the love we both had for my mother.
Since I’m an only child, this is best way I know of having a conversation about the death of my parents. I’m talking to myself, and I’m talking to the whole world.”

To see more of Philip’s work click here

║ Marysa Dowling ║

© Marysa Dowling, Portrait 028, Ireland, from the series The Dowling Study, Parts 1-7, 2005-07

© Marysa Dowling, Portrait 03, Stockport, UK, from the series The Dowling Study, Parts 1-7, 2005-07

“This collaborative family study spans four generations (involving all 32 blood related members of the family) and three countries, the UK, Ireland and the USA. It aims to memorialise the family through sets of images, as well as to explore the role photography has at every level to define, group, classify and individualise us. The series looks at our sense of self, migration, family history and memory, with particular regard to the relationship between photographer / subject / audience.

The images vary from personal portraits to pseudo-forensic and pseudo-anthropological documents. Each person is photographed in the same way, regardless of age or place. The Dowling Study investigates not only the nature of a family group but also my own sense of self, place, belonging and heritage.

Within such a group the use of photography helps to create emotional links, form a group identity (both fictional and real), highlight loss within the family unit, record genealogy, suspend familial events, and expose cultural, emotional and social parallels and contradictions.

Finally, the project highlights the ways in which individuals represent themselves within the family group, both privately and publicly, and perceive the self and others.”

To see more of Marysa’s work click here

║ Marjolaine Ryley ║

© Marjolaine Ryley, Untitled, from the series Communion, 2003

© Marjolaine Ryley, Untitled, from the series Communion, 2003

“In 2003 I attended Braziers International Artists workshop and created the series of images ‘Communion’ .

Having grown up living in squats and transitory communities as a child and hearing my parents talk about their time together (before separating) living in communes in the south of France, I was always fascinated by these places and the reasons people were drawn to them. Braziers Park is a living, breathing community of twenty-five people. During my time at Braziers I created a document of life in the commune. It quickly became apparent that these people, like my parents, were struggling to find equilibrium between their ideals and the reality of communal living. Yet despite the ‘cracks’ I found my time at braziers incredibly moving as it evoked a time in my childhood when my parents were determined to live a way of life that rejected our mainstream materialistic culture in favour of a more fulfilling existence.”

To see more of Marjolaine’s work click here

║ Viviane Sassen ║

© Viviane Sassen, Untitled, from the series Realm

© Viviane Sassen, Untitled, from the series Realm

To see more of Viviane’s work click here

║ Laura Hensser ║

© Laura Hensser, Cheese, from the series Still Life, 2007

© Laura Hensser, Cupcakes, from the series Still Life, 2007

“Laura Hensser’s work has a very personal approach to portraiture that constantly combines her own experiences within her surroundings. By using 5×4 Laura is able to produce highly detailed and structured pieces of work, which examine her interests in conceptual and process based ways of working.
Laura’s most recent work titled ‘Still Life’ explores her own childhood memories and challenges the main conventions of performance based self portraiture. Her recollections are illustrated by items which are placed on her face, turning herself from a subject in to an object of that particular memory. By bringing her internal thoughts to the external surface Laura completely strips herself of her current identity and succumbs to her nostalgic self.”

║ Millie Burton ║

© Millie Burton, Mantlepiece, from the series Pictures from an Interior, 2004

© Millie Burton, Dresser, from the series Pictures from an Interior, 2004

“Pictures from an Interior (2004) is a photographic record and celebration of the house that my grandmother lived in from 1956 until 2008. She was a practical woman and did much of the work on the house herself, and had a knack for putting things together in beautiful and functional displays. But when her children and friends were clearing the house after her death, they found that many of the objects were flawed in some way – vases turned to hide a crack, pairs of glass candlesticks that didn’t match, rugs covering bare patches in carpets. The house has since been sold, and, though it once seemed so permanent, little seen in these photographs now remains.”

To see more of Millie’s work click here

║ Polly Braden ║

© Polly Braden, Untitled, from the series Adventures in the Valley, 2004

© Polly Braden, Untitled, from the series Adventures in the Valley, 2004

“A collaboration between Polly Braden & David Campany

The River Lea runs from the Thames in east London up to Hertfordshire. Once a busy commercial waterway, it is now a nature reserve and leisure area. From the planned site for the 2012 Olympic Games it passes industrial estates, sports centres, new build homes and council estates.

Working together, Braden & Campany move between observational documentary and experimental stagings. There are poetic snapshots and theatrical incidents, naturalistic portraits and semi-fictional enactments. Responding to the strange beauty they find the photographs reflect the place but also reflect upon the processes and conventions of documentary at the same time .

Escape from the city; the reinvention of social spaces; the attraction of water; the meeting of different cultures; the persistence of nature. The project weaves together its motifs, building a complex description of the past, present and future of this half-forgotten thread of land.”

To see more of Polly’s work click here

║ Maximilian Haidacher ║

© Maximilian Haidacher, Untitled, from the series Erz

© Maximilian Haidacher, Untitled, from the series Thron

To see more of Maximilian’s work click here

║ Daniel Augschöll ║

© Daniel Augschöll, Untitled #1, from the series Celestial Planisphere

© Daniel Augschöll, Untitled #10, from the series Celestial Planisphere

To see more of Daniel’s work click here

║ Anya Jasbär ║

© Anya Jasbär, Untitled, from the series Heimat

© Anya Jasbär, Untitled, from the series Heimat

To see more of Anya’s work click here

║ Magdalena Fischer ║

© Magdalena Fisher, Untitled, from the series Neue Tage

© Magdalena Fisher, Untitled, from the series Neue Tage

To see more of Magdalena’s work click here

║ Eric Weeks ║

© Eric Weeks, Big Star, from the series World was in the face of the beloved

© Eric Weeks, Anne Street, from the series World was in the face of the beloved

“I have been photographing my wife Stacy, whom I married four years ago this fall. My relationship with her is the closest, kindest and most successful of my life. My photographs of her are a celebration of this accomplishment.

This work is about a character who is becoming one within the given landscape. She is someone who is okay with who they are and where they are in the world, while at the same time, she questions her place in the universe. She is my protagonist. Although I do not directly intend to expound on the tenets of Zen Buddhism, there is certainly the suggestion of that kind of spiritual tranquility. I want my photographs to offer a respite from all the courser conundrums of humanity.

In short, I want these photographs to speak about ideas of beauty: the beauty of this woman in these attractive clothes; the beauty of the landscape and the figure relating to that space; the beauty of color relationships; and also about the beauty of analogue photography.(…)”

To see more of Eric’s work click here

║ Susan Worsham ║

© Susan Worsham, Lynn watching Dr. Phill, from the series Some Fox Trails in Virginia

© Susan Worsham, Hearse in my childhood driveway, from the series Some Fox Trails in Virginia

© Susan Worsham, Untitled, from the series Some Fox Trails in Virginia

“This series of photographs is taken in and around Virginia, the place in which I grew up. The title comes from a book written by my father’s ancestor, to show the lineage of the Fox family in Virginia. For my own purpose, it acts as a metaphorical map, of the rediscovered paths of my childhood home.

At the age of 34, I came back to Virginia to care for my mother, who died shortly after my return. As the last of my family passed, I turned my lens to old friends, and their new families. I photographed the house in which I grew up. The man that lives there now houses snakes in my father’s old office, and rests them in my old bedroom, while he changes their cages. My mother always promised that there were no snakes in my room, and now that she is gone, there are. A hearse sits in my childhood driveway, representing the passing of my father, and suicide of my brother.

These photographs are not meant to be purely autobiographical, but rather representations of how I view things, based on my own experiences, and those of the people that I have met along the way. My boyfriend Michael, stands on the street I grew up on, bridging the gap between past and present. Lynn, the first stranger that ever sat for me, continues to pose for me, along with her son Max. I have been photographing her for sixteen years now.”

To see more of Susan’s work click here

║ Glen Erler ║

© Glen Erler, Untitled, from the series Life as I knew it

© Glen Erler, Untitled, from the series Life as I knew it

© Glen Erler, Untitled, from the series Life as I knew it

“This was a chance for me to travel around Southern California and photograph friends and family in or around the environment of which they live.

The tree in my aunt holly’s back yard or my cousin Joel looking through the screened enclosure were left pretty much exactly how they were the last time I had gone to visit them a good ten years ago.”

To see more of Glen’s work click here

║ Alexander Gronsky ║

© Alexander Gronsky, Untitled, from the series Pastoral

© Alexander Gronsky, Untitled, from the series Pastoral

“In this project I explore wastelands within Moscow city. Areas that are not urban not rural. Areas that lack definition.”

To see more of Alexander’s work click here

║ Spela Volcic ║

© Spela Volcic, Heiko Jens Ruddigkeit, German, from the series Panis Nostrum

© Spela Volcic, Paulina Pineda Espinosa, Spain, from the series Panis Nostrum

To see more about this series and Spela’s work click here

║ Alexander Valchev ║

© Alexander Valchev, Untitled #3, from the series Piece-Natura, 2001-2006

© Alexander Valchev, Untitled #7, from the series Piece-Natura, 2001-2006

© Alexander Valchev, Untitled #10, from the series Piece-Natura, 2001-2006

To see more of Alexander’s work click here

║ Torbjorn Rodland ║

© Torbjorn Rodland, Untitled #5, from the series In a Norwegian Landscape, 1993

© Torbjorn Rodland, Nightlife, from the series Hello like before, 1998

To see more of Torbjorn’s work click here

║ Annica Karlsson Rixon ║

© Annica Karlsson Rixon, Annika Lundgren, Berlin, from the series Private Premises, 2005

© Annica Karlsson Rixon,  Lisa Strömbeck, Berlin, from the series Private Premises, 2005

To see more of Annica’s work click here

║ Peter Fraser ║

© Peter Fraser, Untitled, from the series 12 Day Journay, 1984

© Peter Fraser, Untitled, from the series 12 Day Journay, 1984

“I see photographs everywhere, like everyone else, nowadays; they come from the world to me, without my asking; they are only ‘images,’ their mode of appearance is heterogeneous…I realized that some provoked tiny jubilations, as if they referred to a stilled center, an erotic or lacerating value buried in myself (however harmless the subject matter may have appeared)…” So writes Roland Barthes, pointing out the way in which we have learned to see “photographically,” to frame, to snap, to make our memories into fragmented images to be recalled (or not) as though appearing in a mnemonic scrapbook. The accumulated mass of the world appears as a heterogeneous fabric of multi-colored threads, a tiny percentage of them glistening, glancing toward the eye of a beholder, provoking “tiny jubilations.” Fraser seeks these shudders, behaving as a convalescent drunken child charmed with the sparkle of even the most pedestrian things, unwilling to posit any hierarchy of value between, say, the hue of a lumpy red suitcase and the intricate scaffold-structure of a communications satellite. To borrow a term from Russian structuralism, Fraser is in the business of “making strange,” not because he is endowed with any secret transformative touch but, rather, because he sees strangeness itself as the most natural thing in the world.

Johanna Burton, New York, December 2003

To see more of Peter’s work click here

║ Simone Bergantini ║

© Simone Bergantini, Untitled, from the series Seminario sull’infanzia

© Simone Bergantini, Untitled, from the series Seminario sull’infanzia

To see more of Simone’s work click here

║ Amira Fritz ║

© Amira Fritz, Ever Manifesto 01

© Amira Fritz, Ever Manifesto 01

To see more of Amira’s work click here

║ Michael Lundgren ║

© Michael Lundgren, Untittled #1, from the series Ruins

© Michael Lundgren, Untittled #14, from the series Ruins

“As an artist, I have always been drawn to the field of landscape. It is the perfect subject with which to explore our history and our desire, two urges bound deeply together in the mythology and experience of the American West. As well, working in wild places always feels like coming
home.
For seven years I worked exclusively on a series entitled, Transfigurations. I began this work in 2000 as a graduate student at Arizona State University—culminating in a monograph published by Radius Books (October 2008). Born from a long-term relationship with the desert, these pictures refer to the heart of these places, not by description, but by metaphor. If I have learned anything from Postmodernism, it is that photographs are not the thing itself. Photography’s burden of representation has been lessened and yet I am still able to access real experience with these pictures. While this work is about being on the surface of the earth, the images do not proceed by literal content; their meaning comes from an engagement with the transformative capacity of photography. Through sequence they speak of a search for the elusive, through layers of
phenomena unfurled as a story of desert experience.
These photographs are a lust for the primitive, for what lies behind personality. They are a search to understand beauty and terror, which are bound to one utter certainty—change. In the desert nothing is static, even rocks move. Through intuition, I hope to photograph the impossible, to fix the fugitive on film.”

Excerpt from artist’s statement

To see more of Michael’s work click here

║ Kent Klich ║

© Kent Klich, Untitled, from the series Picture Imperfect

© Kent Klich, Untitled, from the series Picture Imperfect

© Kent Klich, Untitled, from the series Picture Imperfect

“In family albums we often see parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wifes, aspiring to look their best in the photographs. They will often respond to the camera by posing together, forcing glazed smiles while affirming the family bond. Looking at the lens for approval they may inuit that someone – perhaps even themselves- will return the gaze decades later, searching the image for its hidden meanings.
Framed in ways they cannot completely control, vulnerable and mute, they may be concerned tha one day they will be judged. Will they appear succesful? Handsome?
Beautiful? With enough dignity, money and status? Will their lives be thought worthwhile?
Might they appear once to have been desirable? Cute? Loved?

In Beth`s case, the façade was barely sustained. Perfection, even of the official, superficial photographic kind, vanished all too quickly. Now Beth`s all-too-public family album, circumscribed by the limitations of well-intentioned social service agencies, eroded at its core by the malignancy of her family`s cancerous emotions, was rapidly gutted, its pages sadly renouncing even the intimations of Paradiso while parading various forms of hell.”

Excerpt from Beyond the Rectangles, by Fred Ritchin

To see more of Kent’s work click here

║ Bastienne Schmidt ║

© Bastienne Schmidt, Untitled #5, from the series Home Still Life

© Bastienne Schmidt, Untitled #17, from the series Home Still Life

To see more of Bastienne’s work click here

║ Anne Zahalka ║

© Anne Zahalka, Room 4321 (with artwork by Vanila Netto), from the series Hotel Suite, 2008

© Anne Zahalka, Monday, 11:48pm, from the series Open House, 1995

To see more of Anne’s work click here

║ Deborah Paauwe ║

© Deborah Paauwe, Broken Melody, from the series The Crying Room, 2006

© Deborah Paauwe, Crimson Autograph, from the series Double Dutch, 2002

“Deborah Paauwe’s imagery circulates between art photography and erotica as the artist seduces and assaults the gaze. Paauwe engages with a labyrinthine gaze that Lacan charts as a map full of traps and misrecognitions

In this series of photographs the artist accentuates the screen aspects of the Lacanian gaze, framing this quite literally for the viewer by using a veil to shroud and figures. The body is seen through a screen of translucent material, enticing the voyeuristic desires of the spectator. The bodies are soaked in and through the veil, making indents and traces in the material, as the subject becomes index.

The veil produces a sensuous affect at the same time as it shrouds the image giving it an auratic, ghostly shield. The veiling of the female form has sensual, religious and ideological aspects: it is simultaneously erotic and sinister

The erotic aspects of the photographs position them within a discourse about the objectification of the female form for the male gaze. The images are both dangerous and playful. They capture a coming of age, a transition from childhood to adult sexuality, and they engage with and unsettle the gaze through association with larger issues. Paauwe plays with the gaze and the construction of the female subject by getting her models to perform scenes. The performative aspects of the photographs need to be considered – it is this artifice that separates the images from ‘real’ life. There is no document being recorded. These are not real scenes captured by the camera as a mute witness. These pictures are made as art. Some consciously reference the history of photography. Porcelain, for example, could be read as a feminisation of Edward Weston’s famous photograph of his son, Neil, titled Nude Torso (1922), that was appropriated by Sherrie Levine in the 1980s to make a statement about great masters and authorship. However, Paauwe’s rendition goes beyond parody. It is a homage to the flesh but whereas Weston and other modernist photographers stressed the form of the image, Paauwe seems to make the flesh ephemeral. The touch of the fingertips on the chest is delicate but haunting. The tips of the fingers appear bruised or dirty and they set up an unnerving contrast to the clean white flesh and the lace bodice.” (…)

Anne Marsh

To see more of Deborah’s work click here

║ Mari Hirata ║

© Mari Hirata, Heels Hoist #3, from the series Domestic Bliss, 2007

© Mari Hirata, The Pregnant Bride, from the series Domestic Bliss, 2007

“My Photographs talk about the unity of formality and informality. It is the combination of established procedure and order, with the notion of surrealism and visual puns.

Progressing forward from the commencement of my photographic works, the White Shoe Series, evolves several works of an analogous kind, which similarly deals with the process of collecting, installing, and documenting objects of the same, multiplied components. After much exploration of various materials, I have come to revisit my primary subject, the white high heels, wherein my attempts are to challenge the human eye, its perception to make sense, and the condition in which our minds attempts to identify with memory, and past visual experiences.”

Mari Hirata

To see more of Mari’s work click here

║ Cherine Fahd ║

© Cherine Fahd, Thinking Thoughts, from the series Idea of the sphere, 2001

© Cherine Fahd, The soft sculpture, from the series Idea of the sphere, 2001

To see more of Cherine’s work click here