Monday, November 30, 2009

New Projects, New Website and Queer Gazes

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving Holiday. I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend, so now I feel rejuvenated to finish up this semester.

As usual, this semester has been busy. The last time I posted I was just starting, and while that was just a few months ago, in this short amount of time so much has developed for my photography. The most prominent development has been the start of a new project. This project is one that I have contemplated doing in many different ways; however, with the right inspiration I have been able to finally get it off the ground. I recently discovered Seiichi Furuya's photographs of his wife Christine, 400 of which are collected in a book. I've always been fascinated with the idea of photographing the same person over many years. Furuya's haunting images of his wife's mental deterioration over the course of their relationship are not only powerful, but surprisingly empowering. I imagine Furuya photographed his wife as a way of coping with the helplessness that encompasses being the partner of someone with mental illness.



For my new project, I took this inspiration from Furuya's work and began photographing my partner, Dana. Here are a few of the images.




This project is my final project for The Portrait class that I'm currently taking, so it's not yet complete. I think this will be a series I'll continue for as long as possible.

In addition to this project, I have at long last started photographing for my thesis project. I won't get too far into it because I don't have a solid artist's statement yet, but the topic is the relationship between Lesbian Visibility and Identity. I started by creating an advertisement seeking lesbian identified women to model, which I emailed to a few friends and posted around campus. I got numerous responses (to my delight!) and have since started interviewing and photographing these women. This project will be my focus for all of next semester in my senior photography class, which will be taught by Kelli Connell.

I've at long last designed my own portfolio website. I'm almost done building it and I just bought my hosting, so in the next couple of weeks it will be up and running.

Lastly, I would like to mention a show that I was unable to attend, but sounded really interesting. It just came down this weekend, so unfortunately I can't recommend you go see it. The name of the show was Queer Gaze and it was on exhibit in Portland at the Fontanelle Gallery.


"Fontanelle Gallery is pleased to present Queer Gaze, a group photography exhibition featuring images of queer people by queer photographers. This show offers a new examination and response to theories of “male gaze”, as originally described by Laura Mulvey as the cinematic depiction of voyeurism and objectification of a female by a heterosexual male viewer. Queer Gaze explores the gaze from woman to woman or queer to queer, as well as the way that many photographers use their own visage or that of their friends to subvert traditional expectations of portraiture..."

Two photographers that I really like, Molly Landreth and Megan Holmes, were in the show, among many other talented Queer artists. This exhibition is the perfect example of where I hope my work will one day show. It demonstrates queer collaboration and community within the art world that I think is vital for artists making queer work.

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