Continuing on from my previous exploration/research in female photographers, I stumbled upon Francesca Woodlman, an Italian self-portrait artist whose astounding body of work resonates deeply with her photographs and her eventual death. I am looking primarily for photographers, that are female whose body of work speaks with my frame of mind (for the finals and my current work).
In her notes, the conversations and letters she sent to friends and lovers, it seems odd to realize that maybe she was not all that lonely nor suicidal. To me, she seemed healthy but sometimes rather awfully energetic and possibly too much for the people around her.
Her photographs speak a lot of the energy of the living. Through the possibility of photography, I could honestly feel that way.
Many of her photographs were often self-portraits of herself, commonly nude and often herself posed doing weird things. The emotional of her work begins to seep through a possible loneliness; a mental loneliness so to speak.
The exploration of the body becomes apparent as she is the subject itself. Through staging and posing, we get a feeling of an artist is a direct part of her work. To me, this is significant as I begin to explore to the idea of using the self as the concept of aesthetic projection. The notion of the body as a meter of performance, an object and also as a device to convey these feelings.
To me, her work is generously tender. The aesthetic elements of a young, naive human being simply (implying) to access the idea of the (tender?) soul.
I can see a few direct references from her works. Contemporary Photographers like Yatender or even Ryan McGinley often use nudes as a way to convey a story. They are often self-portraits but also portraits of others. And maybe only by being bare can they accessibly enter the human soul — to rid of any material bearings.
Maybe her death is as timely as her photographs were taken. Maybe it was a way to cope with life. As she often wrote journals or diary entries, the entire series of work must be compellingly felt and seen through her writing. Her letters are quite mundane, often about her life in RISD etc. but what felt rather provocative was the lack of signs foreboding her suicide. And sometimes I feel that it resonates in me.
At her age, it is impressive to see how far she got to explore the idea of female nudity in front of the lens. Not only are his photographs aesthetically surreal, I can’t help but deny the idea that many of these photographs would somehow or rather forebode the death. Lonely but also tender, often weird and absurd but intensely lovable.