The pencil of Nature
This project is an exercise of appropriation beginning with its title, taking the name that Henry William Fox Talbot gave his publication of photography (1844), where he declared that the human hand had no interference in the documentation of nature. In this series, I revise female poses when photographed by men, re-visiting the work of photographers that have been important in my practice through the years as well as discovering new ones.
Also, I re-enact male poses in the form of self-portraits, working from images that have represented important or celebrated men as well as photographers
or artists representing themselves. My interpretation of these works intends to question if gender is really a quality conferred to us by nature.
I am interested in the stylistic echo that the work makes on the history of photography, as well as the revision made by citing the names of those photographers and
characters that are used as references for the work. In the making of the pictures, I seek to think once more of the body in relation to a film camera and available light, where adapting to the given lighting conditions demands a different set of movements both from the subject and myself.
I believe that working in this way, opens an intimate space where the words we exchange, become an essential part of making these images.
I continue to produce this series as an exploration of the body in movement, using the limbs and core as tools to represent the feeling of fluidity, creating a flow in the edit. My goal is to observe the evolution that occurs in the work from our interpretations of past ideas, placing female bodily transformation that naturally comes with time, at the center of the project. As in Talbot’s fading images, I believe that by accepting our own transformation, we acquire the possibility to comprehend what we consider the other.
YVONNE VENEGAS
This project is an exercise of appropriation beginning with its title, taking the name that Henry William Fox Talbot gave his publication of photography (1844), where he declared that the human hand had no interference in the documentation of nature. In this series, I revise female poses when photographed by men, re-visiting the work of photographers that have been important in my practice through the years as well as discovering new ones.
Also, I re-enact male poses in the form of self-portraits, working from images that have represented important or celebrated men as well as photographers
or artists representing themselves. My interpretation of these works intends to question if gender is really a quality conferred to us by nature.
I am interested in the stylistic echo that the work makes on the history of photography, as well as the revision made by citing the names of those photographers and
characters that are used as references for the work. In the making of the pictures, I seek to think once more of the body in relation to a film camera and available light, where adapting to the given lighting conditions demands a different set of movements both from the subject and myself.
I believe that working in this way, opens an intimate space where the words we exchange, become an essential part of making these images.
I continue to produce this series as an exploration of the body in movement, using the limbs and core as tools to represent the feeling of fluidity, creating a flow in the edit. My goal is to observe the evolution that occurs in the work from our interpretations of past ideas, placing female bodily transformation that naturally comes with time, at the center of the project. As in Talbot’s fading images, I believe that by accepting our own transformation, we acquire the possibility to comprehend what we consider the other.
YVONNE VENEGAS