Hulls - Agence VU'

Hulls

Monika Macdonald

In complete coherence with her previous project, In Absence, she continues her process of experimentation of the photographic act by working as an entomologist, considering the model as a specimen that she watches evolve, alone, immersed in itself, far from its social environment, in a closed space. This time, she devotes herself to the male. If her images echo in the treatment of the nude, the pose or the light, a classical pictorial iconography, she draws up portraits far removed from the traditional representations of the virility and beauty of the men she observes.

Monika Macdonald, once again, breaks down the norms. It is a question of flesh, of trouble, of doubts, of the vulnerability of the body, of the mind and of feelings. She organizes posing sessions behind closed doors and these face-to-face encounters sometimes seem to be trying, so much so that the photographer/photographed relationship is pushed to its ultimate limits. The result is moving images, whether they are derisory, soft or raw, even burlesque: moments of abandonment, introspection or letting go, almost of insanity. The photographer tries to explore the condition of man, stripped of false pretenses and simulacra, far from the assigned and established roles. And these men, under the gaze as scrutinizing as benevolent of Monika Macdonald, are of a confounding and disturbing beauty.

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