Curatorial Statement: Steel Grace
In this monochrome series, the female body confronts and reclaims an industrial past. Set against the cold mass of rusted locomotives, the subject becomes both figure and force—ascending, gripping, leaning, and pausing with precise bodily command. The train, a symbol of linear progress and mechanical control, contrasts with the baroque styling of the woman, whose agency and sensuality disrupt the expected codes of industrial space.
This work engages questions of gendered labour, performativity, and material memory. The model’s high platform boots and sheer fabrics are not costumes of submission but tools of exaggeration—gestures toward power drawn from visibility. Her presence reanimates these machines, once built to serve another economy and time. Each frame holds a balance between posed control and improvised defiance, framing a body that does not comply but composes space anew.
The series is unretouched, relying solely on natural light and camera position to sculpt form and tone. This commitment to photographic integrity aligns with the artist’s broader practice of intimate realism: scenes are constructed, but never fictional. These are real women, real places, real textures—rendered with a fine art gaze that resists digital perfection.
"Steel Grace" invites the viewer to consider how bodies—especially female bodies—inhabit and rewrite spaces once claimed by systems of extraction and efficiency. It is a celebration of movement within stillness, softness within iron, and the quiet resilience of presence itself.
List of Photos at Saatchi Gallery with Links
