Rachel Papo

Talking to family during a break from basic training

2004

Chromogenic print Signed, dated, and numbered, verso 20 x 24 inches (Edition of 9) 30 x 40 inches (Edition of 5) This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Please note that prices increase as editions sell. At the age of eighteen, Israeli girls enter a two-year period in which they will be transformed from girls to women under the Israeli Defense Forces...

Digital C-print Stamped and numbered, verso 20 x 24 inches (Edition of 10) 30 x 40 inches (Edition of 5) 50 x 60 inches (Edition of 3) This photograph is offered by ClampArt, loc...

"Women of the IDF" Large Exhibition color Photograph 30 x 40 inches, mounted on masonite and laminated. Edition of 4 + 2 artists proof. minor dings and bumps to edges Born in Tehran, Iran, Ashkan Sahihi moved with his family to West Germany at the age of seven. Although he began taking photographs as a teenager, Sahihi traces the beginning of his professional trajectory to New York in 1987, a thriving “pop culture metropolis” where he could do the kind of photography work that he wanted to do, exploring the underbelly of the society around him. Taking assignments from German publications such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine, Der Spiegel, Dummy and GEO, he photographed subjects like prisoners on death row, players in the hip-hop scene, and the downtown art scene of New York. Neither black nor white, an insider among outsiders, he found himself able to navigate spaces and dynamics that others might have had difficulty entering. He considered this both a privilege and an obligation – to visit these places and tell these stories. His success led to commissions from American publications as well, including the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Vogue. Put off by the limitations of photojournalism (the expectation that he would illustrate the writer’s perspective rather than author a narrative of his own), Sahihi began to embark on independent, highly compact conceptual series. His main goal in these series has been to drive forward public discourse on topics he believes have not provoked enough or the right kind of discussion: drugs, gender in the media, women in the military, etc. His portraits draw on a familiar visual language – often seated subjects before a neutral backdrop – but push the viewer to feel and think about entirely new things. Although he constantly challenges the comfort level of both the viewer and the subject, Sahihi never removes himself from the line of fire; all of his work requires the artist to immerse himself in uncomfortable situations and challenge his own emotional fortitude. Photographic Series In the “Face Series”, latex-gloved hands manipulate the subjects’ features, stretching, pushing, squeezing, pinching at the whim of external direction – from the artist? The customer? The public? The “Hypnosis Series” comprises 8 portraits of hypnotized subjects each experiencing a single emotion, e.g. helplessness, withholding/anger, or regret. In a society that rewards the suppression of such naked emotion, the purity of these depictions is arresting. In 2006, Sahihi photographed himself in the homes and with the families of six ex-girlfriends and one ex-wife, imposing himself more or less awkwardly on the constellations that emerged after he had exited their lives (“Exes Series”). For Sahihi’s most well-known work, the “Drug Series,” he convinced 11 non–drug users to consume a particular drug, then took their portraits over the course of their trips. The series was born out of Sahihi’s frustration with the hypocrisy of the political conversation about drugs in the United States. “By attempting to present an objective image of drug use, the artist addresses the cultural politics that allow our society to simultaneously glamorize the ‘drug look’ in fashion magazines and the entertainment industry and meanwhile turn a blind eye to the complicated, and vast, problem of drug abuse.” Sahihi has exhibited this series at MoMA PS1 New York in 2001, in Dresden in 2008, and alongside his installation “100 Million in Ready Cash." Sahihi’s dense explorations through small photographic series include “Women of the IDF," portraits of female Israeli soldiers...

Artist: Rachel Lauren Title: Impeded Reflection Date: 2019 Medium: Inkjet print Dimensions: 11 x 14 in. Photographer Rachel Lauren invites viewers to become more aware of the way natural beauty has been contorted, packed and sold as a cold, manufactured, cloned and empty product. Are women inherently beautiful, or do they require modifications? Are you seeing your uniquely created reflection through a distorted lens? By imposing a juxtaposition between real and fake through abstract portraiture, Lauren calls attention to these complex ideals in "Distorted Beauty". Lauren is currently an MFA candidate at UMKC and based in Colorado. Since the age of two, she has fostered a love for photography and traveling which have both shaped her understanding of the issues she addresses in her work. Contemporary photography, portrait photography, experimental portraiture, conceptual photography, Steve McCurry, Lisa Kristine...