Women on Women

About

Focusing on seriality, the exhibition’s curatorial line takes its cue from the notion of repetition as pattern making. Subtleties in composition or format, reiterated throughout the series, capture and reflect the artistic approach of the woman behind the lens. Taking advantage of the immediacy unique to photography, these three artists create imposing, clever and foremost poetic portrayals of women as they know and envision them.

The works on display reflect different approaches to the female portrait. For the series I am, initiated in 2013 and ongoing, Nadia Nervo invites women to sit for her without wearing any make up. Concentrating on her models’ close portrait and stripping the image of narrative, she reveals both her subject’s vulnerability and challenges the viewer’s expectations on a portrait. Laura Ellenberger’s series This is not a Reclining Nude is the most recent from a collaboration between the artist and her long-time friend Alex. With a shared passion for swimming in the sea, and both being visual artist, Laura and Alex use the female body to depict gravity and balance. Referencing the passive pose of the reclining nude, the selected images show Alex employing every muscle in her body to not let go of an overturned sofa and fall to the floor. Kasia Wozniak’s portraits of Reba Maybury, created as part of fashion shoot, echo the original craft of the medium and undermine mainstream commercial photography with their unabashed overlapping of tradition and contemporaneity.