I was notified of Jen Davis‘ new website a few days ago by Facebook, and I nearly whooped for joy; I have googled “Jen Davis” so many times, but I’ve always had to find her images from a gallery or group show announcement or what have you.
Now she’s singed up with the website template company Indexhibit, which is one of my favorite free(ish) sites for personal web design. They don’t offer many bells and whistles (no ftp for your clients here) but for art sites, they’re elegant and simple.
Anyhoo, Jen makes beautiful self portraits. The first one I saw (above), reminded me of another picture of another Yalie: Benjamin Donaldson. This is his, below.
And now a few more Jen Davis self portraits:
Yes, Jen’s photography is fantastic (I’d only seen one or two of them before). And so is Indexhibit, been using it for a while now.
Thanks for the info on indexhibit, was just looking for something like that. Anything similar along those lines you’d recommend looking in to, or is indexhibit the best of the bunch?
I saw Davis’s photos in Aperture a while back and at Look 3, the Festival of the Photograph. It’s good to see more, here. Strong work. Very strong. She’s both a poet and a story teller. Few us–of any age or body type–have the nerve to look at ourselves so closely. Thanks, Rachel.
That is amazing stuff. Many thanks for the heads up.
Nan Goldin without the drugs… I’d hardly call it amazing though, not that I think Goldin has any skill – just a lot of ^*cked up friends and a lot of time behind the lens. Anyone with enough film or a digital camera could reproduce these with very little time. You give too much credit to this one IMO.
J Camp
Atlanta Photographers
Joshua, i think you have the idea of this all wrong, its not the fact that ‘anyone’ can reproduce a print ‘with very little time’ the point is that these images are a part of Jen Davis; an insight into her anxieties, thoughts and dreams. If someone tried to reproduce it, it would be just that. Anything can be reproduced and copied, but not many photographs or self portraits show this much truth, especially not in this image conscious, beauty driven society. besides if nothing else they are beautiful images.
Laura – you’re right, they are beautiful images. I just don’t see anything absurdly special about them.
I have a retarded friend that is a successful DJ because of the “emotional truth” in his work. It doesn’t make him a great artist. Photography is subjective like all art and to each his (or her) own. Just not my tastes. Thanks for sharing, Rachel.