Uniqueness
Anna Matveeva about the project "Uniqueness"
WHAT I WANTED TO SAY
Over time, each of us goes through certain periods: the so-called crises or new stages. Perhaps, one can be ready for this, but at 30, I was caught unawares. Levity and freedom gradually began to give way to responsibility and to the thoughts about the future, when those around you see you as an adult, a person who aspires to something or has already achieved her goals, and when you feel discomfort and dissatisfaction with your own inadequacy or simply because things do not turn out the way you wanted them to be. At the same time, my entire being: my inner world, my desires, and my work,—began to demand further growth and achievement of the goals that I had set earlier. And my body and face began to need more care. I was overtaken by panic over the lack of self-fulfillment and over my gradual external withering. I was in need of some kind of intrinsic, inner breakthrough.
I looked around at my female friends and acquaintances of my own age and older. I saw that all this was happening not only to me but that this was a natural progression. Looking at them, I saw that life marches on and is in no hurry to get anywhere. Everyone evolves, refines and fulfills herself, works, creates a family; I saw that they were all beautiful, with their own merits and their individuality. It made me look at myself in a different way, let myself go. I wanted to capture it on camera. The doors to self-awareness have opened to me through other women. They have become an example for me. Their openness and honesty, their ability to overcome their fear of the camera, of me and of themselves, and at the same time, my fear of them, naked and trusting me, made me look at life in a different way. I have accepted the fact that I am a woman, not a teenager; that for self-fulfillment, I just need to take a camera and shoot, and that to have an “imperfect” body or a few wrinkles is normal and not at all scary. Thoughts about diets and old age have also evaporated. My anxieties have begun to disappear. And I felt all this while looking at the photos of my models.
WHAT I PRODUCED
A woman’s view on overcoming natural complexes and fears that appear at different points over the course of life through taking photographs of nude women of different ages over 30. All the models are intentionally shown without a face; here, everyone can see herself through another picture. To enhance this effect and to convey a direct meaning, I print my works on positive transparent film, which allows viewers to fully examine and to immerse themselves deeper into the photographs. In addition, it creates great possibilities for playing with light in presenting the works.
I worked with a narrow format Nikon F100 camera and a medium format Bronica camera and Hasselblad; natural light; available interiors, and a great desire to accomplish all this. All photographs were shot on black-and-white Ilford 35mm and 120mm film.
Art critic Yulia Spiridonova about the project Uniqueness
“Anna Matveeva’s project Uniqueness is about the female body. The artist presents the well-known phenomenon through a new angle, an unusual mode of perception. In the pictures, the intimacy of naked bodies as a psychological category dominates over the seemingly expected sexual connotation. In Anna’s photographs, a transcendental experience of being human shines through mortal flesh.
The author skillfully manages to cut through clichés and stereotypes within which we have been accustomed to perceive the female body. She suggest a “humanistic” gaze as an alternative to the consumerist one. And this, I must say, is a radicalism of sorts in the current political and cultural context. The pure beauty of female bodies in her photographs resembles classic statues, paintings of the Baroque era or actresses of the French New Wave films. The heroines of the project only slightly deviate from the modern standards of beauty, too clichéd and unhealthy. Still, this allows them to look very fragile and unprotected in the eyes of a modern viewer. In the end, the body of every human being is unique - and this palette of curves and shapes in the photographs will switch the viewer from an external assessment to an internal dialogue, to invisible and intangible integral parts of an individual.
Through video and photography, Matveeva manages to create a personal microcosm; the sensations from visiting her exhibition could be compared to watching a feature film. The poetics of Anna’s works is similar to the work of the French director and artist Chantal Ackerman. We can recall, for example, a scene from "I, You, He, She" ("Je, tu, il, elle", 1976), in which a naked girl locks herself in a room for several days and eats only powdered sugar. In Matveeva’s photographs we also see women as if locked in minimalist interiors. This moment of experiencing and accepting one’s own body and femininity takes the form of time standing still or incredibly slowed-down, of cinematic slow motion; it becomes tangible. New liberalism and freethinking, combined with “soft” feminism, fit both artists into the contemporary art scene in an interesting way.
Anna’s works are based on a dialogue between the subject of the photoshoot and the author. All of the elements come together as a puzzle, turn into shots from a film where there is only one leading lady. Moreover, in some photographs we see a reflection of the author herself.
Matveeva explores the collective experience of femininity through impersonal portraits. The narrative could be viewed as the author’s monologue, but a more interesting way of looking at it would be for the viewer to try to see the pure phenomenology towards which the author is pushing us. The phenomenon in this case would be the painful experience of the body, its deviation from the constructed standards. The subtle co-adjustment of the inner world and the external form acquires a visible imprint in the artist’s photographs.
Uniqueness is also present in the work with the medium itself. Anna is considerate in her selection of materials for printing photographs, which wonderfully support the feeling of fragility that is present in the pictures themselves. The photographs are printed on transparent film and presented in the form of light boxes. Just like the meanings, the film shimmers and flares, reflecting light. Depending on the viewer’s perspective, part of the image may become visible or disappear. The film gives an additional tactile level of perception to Matveeva’s works, it reminds us of touches and adds an element of intimacy to the observation of human skin.
Through the prism of humanism, the study of the female body - one of the most popular objects in art - becomes a challenge to the present. The boom of feminist art, which has radicalized the problem of the female body as an object of sexual attention, has been going on for several decades: it first took place in the West, and now it has reached Russia. However, against its background, the quiet and calm portraits of Matveeva look like a protest. She focuses not on the sexual fetish, not on politics, which would be simple and understandable, but on the subtle, barely perceptible inner world of a woman. She focused on how the heroines accept or do not accept themselves, on their self-confidence, on their deliberate actions, and their inner peace."