Girl-A collaboration with Maeve Scully

Featured in 934 Gallery's December exhibit (2017) in Columbus, OH. 

Before we are born, our identities are automatically defined by a color assigned by our sex. Pink, a color with clothing lines named after it, is notoriously famous for what it portrays in our society. A girl wrapped in pink cloth automatically remind us of the stigmas associated with being the previously deemed weaker sex. In this photo series we aim to call upon what it is to be a woman— particularly a woman on a college campus in such a turbulent era. Hillary Clinton’s name is on every millennials’ lips, but so is Brock Turner’s. It seems that as females gain power in the media they are stripped of it in the real world. This is felt and seen by every female in a university. Unwanted shouts about appearance and uninvited fingers pressed onto sacred skin: the everyday saga of the college female. Shooting this project on film allows the viewer to feel the touch of the artist— it becomes more tangible, more real. Viewer’s should begin to understand the realities faced by young women on college campuses and acknowledge that woman is not a synonym for victim. The film was not cleaned before it was scanned and minimal post-production work occurred to again retain the real feeling, the texture. This was an important component to ‘GIRL’ because the hints of grain and warmth imbedded in the film give the color pink— which acts as a common denominator throughout the series— another dimension. With film the pink carries reminiscent ideas of girlhood and gives the skin the sense of being alive— creating a feeling of tenderness and the power of effeminate.

-Julia Mattis and Maeve Scully