Christina Dy and Corinne De San Jose present A Very Short Flowering Season, a series of photographs of women’s bare backs, layered with embroidered patterns of flowers and trees. A Very Short Flowering Season was inspired by Edward Steichen’s iconic 1924 photograph of Gloria Swanson. "Her powerful gaze behind a sheet of intricate black lace is an object so historically tied to all things womanly."
The collaboration is between two artists and friends who ask one question: What makes a woman beautiful?
To find the answer to their question, Dy and De San Jose asked women to pose for them. "The process of shooting was unceremonious. They come in, take their clothes off, and then leave. These are torsos of women from behind, lit neutrally, without the intimate cropping, or digital manipulation typical of nude photographs. Without faces, eyes, breasts, or the rest of the body to pose or contort, the women are reduced to forms almost generic, somewhat cold and also vulnerable. They are not given the power to present themselves the way they want to."
Each woman is like the other. No need for comparisons as to who has the prettier face or the nicer body. They are all “woman” as defined by every curve and every flower. In them, we see all at once the many layers of a woman: beauty and empowerment, vulnerability and tragedy, mystery and revelation.
A Very Short Flowering Season by Christina Dy & Corinne De San Jose opens simultaneously with DOMINION by Wawi Navarroza in Silverlens; and All The Wonderful Things by Christina Dy in SLab. The three shows run until April 23,2011.
Words by Bea Davila; Image: Corinne De San Jose & Christina Dy, 02, 2011
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