In exuberant portraits, digital manipulation, nude bodies, and conceptual image objects, The Ravestijn Gallery is delighted to present a rich selection of works by
Michael Bailey-Gates (b. 1993, USA), Inez & Vinoodh(b. 1963 / 1961, the Netherlands), Eva Stenram (b. 1976, Sweden) and Theis Wendt (b. 1981, Denmark) at The Photography Show presented by AIPAD.

For Swedish artist Eva Stenram, collections of found photographs from the 1960s offer foundations to her own poetic – and similarly elusive – artworks. Re-examined, removed from their contexts, digitally manipulated, or overwritten in an elusive language of cryptic markings, these images derive new meaning from a host of proposed associations. For her Drape series, Stenram transformed a series of soft pornographic images from vintage pinup magazines – extruding lengths of fabric to swallow up the unknown models, and probing at the viewer’s desire to see what has now been concealed from view.

Reimagined bodies – whether manipulated or partly concealed – are a common visual feature in the work of Dutch duo Inez van Lamswerde and Vinoodh Matadin, who count themselves among early proponents of revolutionary digital image-editing techniques, which they explored throughout the 1990s. Like Stenram, seducing the viewer is another central tenet of their image-making practice – a practice that moves seamlessly between high fashion, pop culture and fine art. In Lucy Fer, beauty and dark fantasy collide; the featured work shows Estonian supermodel Carmen Kass as a nude three-headed monster of sorts, her hips and waist distorted, her face(s) buried by a mass of wiry hair.

Elsewhere, in the works of American artist Michael Bailey-Gates, a space of joyous affirmation opens up – where gender binaries and normative conventions ebb into distant memory, dissolving before our eyes. In their images, the artist poses for exuberant portraits with a playful cast of friends, toying with the scope and limits of viewers’ expectations. Carefully-selected props, rather than elaborate digital post-processing techniques, offer Bailey-Gates’ work an added dimension. But beneath the riotous celebration lie more serious concerns – here, the camera is an essential tool for grappling identities and self-representation, whilst nudity becomes a powerful metaphor for the naked vulnerability of seeking acceptance.

Abstract, austere and instantly intriguing, Theis Wendt’s illusionary works consider the human thirst for authenticity at a time when our grasp on reality has been transformed by technological change. In the artist’s Void series, a triptych of prints borrow from the organic textures of the wooden frames in which they’re housed, culminating in a compelling optical trick. Whilst the motif of the frame – found elsewhere in Wendt’s projects – is a recurrent reminder of the stifling structures through which we often think and see, his works maintain a romantic quality; they point to something else on the horizon – around the corner, perhaps – if we can find the tools to imagine it.