Tamara Dean
About Face – “Are you a boy or a girl?”
A series of portraits of people with androgynous qualities, which for me symbolize a universal sense of humanity without gender defining the individual.
Meng – I have a really cool paternal grandmother – she’s a Buddhist nun, has a shaved head, and really made her own way as a single mother in Communist China. My grandmother’s favorite story as a child was Mulan. A few months ago I watched the Disney rendition of Mulan with my mum and I struggled very hard not to cry during the scene where she cuts off all her hair to join the army. It reminded me of when I first cut off all my long, thick, black hair and my mother cried. She said to me in Mandarin through her sobs and tears, “Not boy, not girl” – a phrase she proceeded to repeat to me for over four years. I don’t think being androgynous means being neither a boy nor a girl – I think it means being able to embrace both femininity and masculinity. I think it means being comfortable with this fusion of softness and hardness, sensitivity and resilience, the external and the internal.
Grace – I was a confident child, that wore what I wanted and did what made me happy. I had no concept of gender; and the associated expectations, or an understanding of sexuality. As a child I had a strong sense of identity; it is a strange thing to lose it in adolescence only to regain it again. As a small children we played kiss and catch; I was always on the boys team and none of the kids questioned it. The environment that I grew up in was very open and allowed for self discovery and as a young girl it was acceptable to be a tomboy. I never wanted to trade in my board shorts and black harley davidson shirt for a dress, however, it had occurred to me that it was expected. I never thought people perceived me as a boy until I went to my friends house and his father asked me directly “are you a boy or a girl?”. I was self-conscious and hesitant to answer, that moment made me stop and internalise what that question meant.
Bio
Tamara Dean is an Australian photographic artist. In 2013 Dean was selected for the ArtOmi International Artists Residency, New York. Works produced during this residency won first prize in the 2013 New York Photo Awards – Fine Art series category. Dean has received numerous awards including a high commendation – 2013 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, winner – 2011 Olive Cotton Award and winner – 2009 Sydney Life: Art & About. Her works have featured in the 2015 Sydney Contemporary, 2014 Melbourne Art Fair, 2013 Aspettando FotoLeggendo Festival, Italy; 2012 Fotofever Brussels Art Fair and 2012 Pingyao Photography Festiva China. Solo shows include Here-and-Now 2015, The Edge, 2014, Only Human, 2012, This too Shall Pass, 2010 , Ritualism and Divine Rites, 2009. Dean was a member of the Oculi photographic collective from 2001-2011. Dean is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Jayne H Baum Gallery, NYC
This aspect of life gets a lot of media coverage of late as well as being highly driven by social media.
They all seem terribly unhappy in a way that manifests itself with the same facial expression. And it’s not just these unhappy looking photo subjects; that expression is common across a wide range of photo projects.
Instead of “say cheese,” do we say “stare pensively and think sad thoughts?”
What is it about that expression that is so appealing to photographers? Does it communicate more about us than it does about the subject? Do we need an unhappy ‘other’ to somehow complete us? Or to kid ourselves that we are some kind of separate? Or is it just a cliché we fall back on when some aspect of human complexity is too difficult to communicate visually?
Other than that pet peeve, the photos are technically well done with interesting light and shadow, though excessive post production is visible on a couple, perhaps due to jpeg compression for the web; and text is well conceived and written. There’s a lot one can learn from this series.
I followed through from Instagram to here to see the rest of the work, and I’m left with a sense of disappointment that the instagram image was one of the same image repeated, and was not an indication of a more rounded work. I’m also left with a sense of pretentiousness; moody lighting and derelict rooms convey, to me, something of sensationalism, dislocation and objectification of the subjects. The work is cold. I don’t feel there is much of what I would consider a strong enough connection between the intent of the photographer and the finished work. Frankly, I don’t understand what the purpose of the work is, in the way that its been executed.
It does not represent to me, the strength of character, and the monumental effort it takes to manifest a gender change, both psychologically and socially.
devtank remember that this is also championed by popular culture so a lot is pretty much as skin deep…. no pun intended