"Self Portrait with Melon, Darkroom Curtains" by Jenna Westra, 2021 Courtesy: SCHWARZ CONTEMPORARY
Jenna Westra shows a new body of work in her second solo show Mellow Drama at SCHWARZ CONTEMPORARY.
Westra uses the camera to record what would otherwise be lost in movement. Her work is built on the core characteristics of the medium: a technical translation of eyesight, with light, shadow, crop, composition, perspective and hue as its defining factors. A split of a second, turned into images to hang onto.
The silver gelantin and colour prints hint at a narrative that links bodies to objects to spaces and interlinks genres and times, from dance to performance to photography, from the analog to the digital.
By deliberately pairing female bodies, body parts and objects in a performative act in her studio, Westra creates an atmosphere of tenderness and closeness that finds a visible voice in her work.
