A nude figure in a deep red shower covered by green towel with soap and sponges
A nude figure sits on kitchen counter infront of stained glass window with faucet leaning towards them
A half-clothed figure with blue flannel in lush green forest with blue and pink marker flags
A nude female-looking figure from chest to hips holding a burning stick
A nude figure, back towards camera reclining, infront of an ornate carved bedframe
A hazy male figure in a chair behind blue-yellow glass
A nude figure reclining behind white curtain holding a neon pink strap on dildo
A nude figure folded on a chair in a sunbeam, looking upward infront of a red door
A nude figure laying on a black sand beach amidst driftwood
A series of analog photographs, nude self-portraits of the artist, in a white walled gallery
All 18 framed self-portrait photographs in a white walled industrial space
Three framed color self-portraits in a white walled gallery
Two rows of risograph printed Zines on white shelves
Two color self-portraits in a white walled gallery
A series of color photograph self-portraits in a white-walled gallery space

Bodies of Wood

Peninsula Art Space, Brooklyn, NY. April 7 – May 15, 2016.

 

Bodies of Wood is series of self-portraits exploring my relationship to my father, who was incarcerated ten years ago for a sexual offense against a 13 year-old boy. What was left out of the criminal investigation was the abuse he directed against his wife and daughters; abuse against women that was protected by the institution of the heterosexual family. There was never any legal intervention, or any justice, for what my father did to me.

In Bodies of Wood, I used the camera to transform experiences deemed unspeakable. Within the photographic frame, I found a way to express emotions that were excluded from other cultural processes of healing. Each self-portrait became a performative ritual for the camera. I worked alone with a vintage Yashica and a remote cable release, putting my nude body into public and domestic landscapes in order to feel – and have power over – how I was framed. I sought a pure jouissance: a pleasure in my own labor of creation that was inseparable from, and deepened by, pain.

I worked with bright colors and soft light to evoke the dream-like hyperreality of the traumatic memory, vividly emblazoned yet always distorted. I used the suggestive symbolism of the home, finding sinister shadows and phallic protrusions amongst its ordinary objects. I posed nude to capture the simultaneous empowerment and vulnerability of my body, yet I defiantly turned my gaze away from the camera, or cut my head out of the frame. This posture is both an act of refusal, touching on the power of “no” for victims of sexual violence, while also underscoring how victim’s bodies are made faceless to dehumanize them. By making these experiences public, I saw something beyond testimony. These images were acts of transformative justice.

This exhibition was accompanied by a personal essay, which was originally published online in Luna, Luna Magazine. It is also available in print as a limited-run zine. 

 

Exhibition History

Bodies of Wood, solo exhibition, Aperture Foundation, New York, NY, May 20 – 23, 2017. 

Bodies of Wood, solo exhibition, Peninsula Art Space, Brooklyn, NY, 2016. Curated by Walker Waugh.  April 7 – May 15, 2016.

 

Selected Press

Boot, Chris. “Rowan Renee’s Defiant Pictures of Trauma,” Aperture, May 15, 2017. (Interview)

Sancken, Kristin. “The Disconcerting Beauty of an Artist’s Nude Self-Portraits,” Hyperallergic, May 12, 2016. (Review)

Comstock, Lindsay. “Rowan Renee Examines Abuse and Gender Identity,” American Photo Magazine, May 4, 2016. (Interview)

Collins, Gillie. “The Unspeakable: How Photographer Rowan Renee Transforms the Deeply Personal Past,” Guernica, May 2, 2016. (Review)

 

Share: