RAQUEL NAVE
Raquel Nave is a ruthless photographer and explorer of American fuck-ups. Her artwork contains polaroids of landscapes, still lifes, nudes, Nave, her family, and her companions. The snapshots represent the identity exploration of a young woman and the journey of an artist working in her style and medium. Stances and expressions in Nave’s photographs reveal her unique personal narratives. Used alternately, they suggest the subsuming of other identities.
The American artist reflects the reality of herself and her female friends as subjects; her intimate compositions represent the multifarious aspects of her gritty world. Juxtaposed are landscape shots, unpremeditated yet instinctively aware of some wonderment captured–quilted clouds hovering over placid ground. Challenging the boundaries of the role of photographer and model, she subverts the conception of the objectified model by placing herself as both the object and subject of the work and of the lustful gaze. Punctuating the portraits are stills of seemingly banal objects: a painted guitar; a gas pump; plastic flowers.
The images, taken as a collection, reveal the artist’s dynamic discovery of self through play, performance, and pose; through the camera; through the viewer’s gaze; through the environment that surrounds her; through her split exhibitionism and voyeurism.
[images via CONTRIBUTING EDITOR and SANG BLEU]
