© Anya Jasbär, Untitled, from the series Heimat
© Anya Jasbär, Untitled, from the series Heimat
To see more of Anya’s work click here
Category Archives: Intimacy
║ Javier Marquerie Thomas ║
© Javier Marquerie Thomas, Beltrán, from the series Flight of Fancy, 2007
© Javier Marquerie Thomas, Vivian, from the series Flight of Fancy, 2007
“Flight of Fancy; to daydream.
Between the impetus of infancy and the inertia of maturity. “The best years of our lives”. Years envied, idealized, over rated. An extensive cloud of anecdotes. An accumulation of memories without a clear continuity. In retrospect, a “phase”. During puberty, we are conditioned to successfully confront the “real world”, but instead we live in a disoriented fantasy; hybrid between something that really has been and a tale.
My mother tongue, apart from Spanish, is English which lead me to being an English teacher. A few years back one of my classes was with two businessmen. We had one-hour classes, twice a week. I was twenty, they were sixty; married, with children and one of them with grandchildren. I was going home to a mattress on the floor and pending bills to pay. The irony of this all seemed somewhat funny, mostly however, it saddened me. Not because of the mattress, this I liked, but because of the realisation that I was now a grown-up. From one day to the next that desire for maturity had turned into something tangible and the image I sought of my self was no longer so pleasant to carry.
Flight of Fancy is a catalogue of characters, fictions conceived as sociological documents of a transformation period. After that leap towards utopia: that is adolescence, we land by inertia into a scripted role, only to find a fiction completely alien to out smattering of adulthood.
Inevitably, in the current, we remain.”
Javier Marquerie Thomas
To see more of Javier’s work click here
║ Wilma Hurskainen ║
© Wilma Hurskainen, Untitled, from the series No Name, 2007 -
© Wilma Hurskainen, Untitled, from the series No Name, 2007 -
© Wilma Hurskainen, Untitled, from the series No Name, 2007 -
“In my new series No Name I go further with the themes of childhood and memory. This time childhood and adulthood, like layers, are present in the same photograph. I re-create my memories, some of which are false or invented, and continue the visual representation of these memories by loosely attaching texts to the pictures. By doing this I try to find out and question the means a text and a photograph use to mediate a story(memory. A text seems a lot more straightforward in its narration; and yet it is the photograph that has an indexical relation to the past. The reader/spectator takes a different position towards the text than the photograph. I hope that looking at the series could resemble the actual, complex process of remembering and the constant re-writing of a memoru. At the same time, the texts comment on the photographic representations and the posssibilities of posing for a photograph.”
Wilma Hurskainen
To see ore of Wilma’s work click here
║ Vardi Kahana ║
© Vardi Kahana, Yael, Safed, from the series One Family 2007
© Vardi Kahana, Tal R, Copenhagen Denmark, from the series One Family 2004
© Vardi Kahana, Cousin Rina, Groningen, Netherlands, from the series One Family 2004
To see more of Verdi’s work click here
║ Clark & Pougnaud ║
© Clark & Pougnaud, Virginie, from the series Tribute to Edward Hopper, 2000
“We were fascinated by the composition, the lighting and the settings of Edward Hopper’s paintings.
We were not aiming to reproduce his paintings by rather to let ourselves be inspired by them.
We approached this reverently to avoid disturbing the apparent order.
We chose actors to pose for these photographs because they know how to bring life to immobility and also because our sets resemble stage sets.”
Clark & Pougnaud
© Clark & Pougnaud, Storyville, from the series Intimacy, 2003
“It may seem paradoxical to try to capture intimacy in a photograph. It might seem an impossible feat to “reveal” modesty, yet that is what we attempted to do. Each model unveiled her feminity, her intimacy according to her own criterion of modesty.”
Clark & Pougnaud
To see more of Clark and Pougnaud’s work click here
║ Sofia Silva ║
© Sofia Silva, Fiber Organic Memory, from the series Memory’s Architecture, 2009 (work in progress)
© Sofia Silva, Losing Inner Heat, from the series Memory’s Architecture, 2009 (work in progress)
“Although alcohol isn’t a medicine, it can provoke the sensation of regeneration and strength, distorting an impetus of momentary courage. At the same time we feel it kills our thirst and feed us, what it really does is to bring the blood to the surface of the skin, in fact impairing the functioning of all the organs able to emit the sensation of strength, heat, hunger or thirst.
“Memory’s Architecture” is a series that started out from the will to reflect upon the sensations experienced (and/or lost) before, during and after moments of coexistence marked by the absence of alcohol.
Here, the alcohol is a key element. Each of these photographs is the result of an exercise to revisit the past, always bearing in mind that the memory of what we have no access to will forever be, solely and exclusively, recorded in the memory of others and in devices that allow to file it, leaving it to be part of a future that, although documenting us, no longer belong to us.”
Sofia Silva
║ Paula Muhr ║
© Paula Muhr, Untitled #8, from the series MM, 2005
© Paula Muhr, Untitled #11, from the series MM, 2005
“The series explores issues relating to childhood memories, intimacy, and anxiety about the imminent future loss. Stark, often almost abstract images of my grandmother’s body, naked or in underwear, are combined with texts in which I express my memories of the childhood spent with her, re-tell anecdotes from her youth or describe her current habits.
The interaction between the images of her aged body, presented in fragments, and the words which offer a very personal and, therefore, partial insight into her personality, mediate the elusive presence of the past. Barthes stated that photograph is a form of «flat death» as it not only presents us with what was, but also precedes the actual death of the depicted person. My granny’s face is never directly shown on the images – it is rather portrayed with the aid of words. Text, thus, plays an important role, not just as a strong graphic presence, but also as a means of suggesting the inability to directly visually represent intimacy and personal attachment.
My grandmother’s fragile body, although it defies conventional presentations of female nudity, is everything but repulsive, since her willingness to reveal her flesh to the gaze of camera asserts its own norms of beauty. She is proud of body, which is still functional and quite healthy in such advanced age, and this self-assurance is the source of her beauty.
Ever since I can remember my granny, her body has already been old. In my childhood, it symbolised comfort and protection. However, throughout the years, as I have been observing her body slowly, but surely detereorating, it has also become for me a memento mori, a sign of inevitable passage of time. In such a case, her corpulence, the sheer presence of her body with all the traces of time incribed in it, becomes as important as the memories of the moments spent with her.”
Paula Muhr
To see more of Rafal”s work click here
║ Kumi Oguro ║
© Kumi Oguro, Sky, from the series Noise I, 2007
© Kumi Oguro, Noise, from the series Noise II, 2005
© Kumi Oguro, Far, from the series Noise III, 2004
“Perhaps unwittingly or even in spite of itself, Kumi Oguro’s photographic work has from the outset been drawn towards cinema. This influence has led the photographer to explore the theoretical, historic, visual and manifestly numerous relationships between her own photography and the language of cinema. This permeation could not be described as a debt in the strict sense, nor is it nurtured by explicit or obliging citations or references. Instead it feels its way, spontaneously seeking its own path and its own markers.
From her earliest exhibitions and publications and even in the recent developments of her highly personal series “NOISE”, compiled here in the coherent form of a book, these relationships (the staging of locations, placing bodies in real-life situations, the expressionist use of light, the theatrical play between actors, indications of an off-camera area, effects designed to create tension, veiled references to the logic of genres, etc.) have become undeniably more complex, but also increasingly diverse.”
Emmanuel d’Autreppe
To see more of Kumi”s work click here
║ Esther Teichmann ║
© Esther Teichmann, Diptych, from the series Viscosity, 2005
© Esther Teichmann, Untitled, from the series Inward Bound, 2006
© Esther Teichmann, Untitled, from the series Inward Bound, 2006
“In her large-scale photographic works and video pieces Esther Teichmann examines the relationship of the self to the maternal body and to the body of the lover. Desire and fear of loss are subtly and yet powerfully evoked in these explorations of the visceral and expressive properties of the human physique and skin. (…)
Teichmann’s work is autobiographical in that she chooses for her subjects the members of her immediate family. In her works their (often naked) bodies are almost close enough to touch, yet are held at a distance by the inherent aspects of the photographic medium. Like the mother’s skin, seen by the infant as fragmented surface, and like the lover’s skin too close to focus upon, so the image demands that the spectators negotiate their relationship to it.”
Carol Mavor
More of Esther’s work can be seen here
Teichmann’s work is autobiographical in that she chooses for her subjects the members of her immediate family. In her works their (often naked) bodies are almost close enough to touch, yet are held at a distance by the inherent aspects of the photographic medium. Like the mother’s skin, seen by the infant as fragmented surface, and like the lover’s skin too close to focus upon, so the image demands that the spectators negotiate their relationship to it.”
Carol Mavor
More of Esther’s work can be seen here
║ Jana C. Perez ║
© Jana C. Perez, Getting Ready, from the series Her Stories
© Jana C. Perez, Crossroads, from the series Her Stories
“This series of photographs and video containes one central female character, the anti-heroine, who appeares in every “scene”. The viewer watches as she journeys through self-destruction, sexuality, identity, and relationships along with the characters in each image…”
Jana C. Perez
To see more of Jana’s work click here
║ Joy Christiansen ║
© Joy Christiansen, Sunday School, from the series Remembered, 2006
© Joy Christiansen, The Unexpected Departure, from the series Remembered, 2008
“The inspiration for this series came from the interviews I conducted during another project, titled Family Gathering. While collecting information for Family Gathering, I interviewed adults who recalled their experiences with eating disorders. In several cases, I interviewed families who had descriptions of specific events dramatically different from each other. This began my personal process of revisiting my own childhood memories and recalling what I remembered as truths and what could have been ‘learned’ through family photographs. This investigation into memory and truth is what inspired the series.
This current body of photographic images are large-scale color narratives. These staged photographs recall childhood perceptions and dramas from an adult view with adults as the actors. These playful yet eerie images offer an insight into phobias and anxieties of my childhood. Memories inspired by fights with my younger brother, birthday disasters and snowball battles are subjects that are explored often using the same childhood friends as models.”
Joy Christiansen
This current body of photographic images are large-scale color narratives. These staged photographs recall childhood perceptions and dramas from an adult view with adults as the actors. These playful yet eerie images offer an insight into phobias and anxieties of my childhood. Memories inspired by fights with my younger brother, birthday disasters and snowball battles are subjects that are explored often using the same childhood friends as models.”
Joy Christiansen
To see more of Joy’s work click here
║ E-J Major ║
© E-J Major, Postcard, from the series Love is…
© E-J Major, Postcard, from the series Love is…
© E-J Major, Postcard, from the series Love is…
“Love is… Three years ago, London-based artist E-J Major began asking strangers to divulge their thoughts on this most profound, yet indefinable subject. The answers, sent anonymously on postcards, reveal richly individual reflections on a universal emotion, both joyful and bitter, some weighty, others flippant. But what is love exactly, other than a much-abused word? The inadequacy of language is central to much of Major’s work, which often takes snippets of source materials—books, drawings, magazine articles, or in this case film stills from Last Tango in Paris—as the start point for her investigations.
The process—her engagement with the materials and where that takes her—is as important to her as the end result, and typically the projects take months or years to complete. For Love is…, she created a high-resolution screenshot of each second of Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial 1972 classic, making a single postcard from each one. She then hand-delivered the cards to strangers’ letterboxes around London and the West Midlands, with her freepost address on the back, together with a message that asked recipients to return it with their thoughts, as part of “an enquiry into love”.“
Simon Bainbridge
The process—her engagement with the materials and where that takes her—is as important to her as the end result, and typically the projects take months or years to complete. For Love is…, she created a high-resolution screenshot of each second of Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial 1972 classic, making a single postcard from each one. She then hand-delivered the cards to strangers’ letterboxes around London and the West Midlands, with her freepost address on the back, together with a message that asked recipients to return it with their thoughts, as part of “an enquiry into love”.“
Simon Bainbridge
To read the full text click here
To see more of EJ’s work click here
║ KayLynn Deveney ║
© KayLynn Deveney, Untitled, from the series Edith and Len, 2000
© KayLynn Deveney, Cat on Bed, from the series Edith and Len, 2000
“I began photographing Edith and Leonard Crawshaw shortly after they moved from their flat into a Welsh nursing home. Following a broken hip and an extended hospital stay, Len required more care than than he had previously. That combined with problems such as negotiating stairs, the occasional burned saucepan and Edith’s failing eyesight, finally led to the move. Len went from the hospital straight to the nursing home, and Edith went with him. At ages 93 and 92 respectively, Edith and Len then found themselves spending the vast majority of their day in their one room at the nursing home, where they would sit together, eat together and sleep together.”
KayLynn Deverey
© It’s worth reading (besides seeing) everything about this work.
More of KayLynn’s work can be found here
║ Jocelyn Lee ║
© Jocelyn Lee, Untitled (Kara standing), 2005, from the series Portraits
© Jocelyn Lee, Untitled (Michelle and Lisa), 2006, from the series Portraits
“I photograph portraits because I am curious about people, and our tenacious attempts to find meaning and direction in the world. I am particularly interested in how we reveal our vulnerability, which is not something our culture reinforces or encourages.
My portraits are about the things people consider when they are alone or in between moments of inactivity and reflection: aging, illness, sex, the body, states of transition, our desire for connection, and the search for personal identity.”
Jocelyn Lee
My portraits are about the things people consider when they are alone or in between moments of inactivity and reflection: aging, illness, sex, the body, states of transition, our desire for connection, and the search for personal identity.”
Jocelyn Lee
More of Jocelyn’s work can be seen here
║ Katie Shapiro ║
© Katie Shapiro, Watching the Big Screen, from the series 35 Years
© Katie Shapiro, Embrace, from the series 35 Years
More of her work can be seen here
