France

Mona Kuhn

I was born and raised in Brazil, and lived the first half of my life there. Then 20 years ago I moved to the US.  In the last 15 years I have been spending my summers in France, where I own a place, which I like to think of as my atelier.  The work done at that region has been published by Steidl in "Photographs", "Evidence" as well as "Bordeaux Series". I photograph mostly during the summers, when people feel comfortable and natural in the nude. That leaves the rest of the year for me to concentrate on other aspects of the creative process and the exhibition schedules and at times commercial projects.


I began taking photographs at age 12, when my parents gave me a small Kodak camera for my birthday. The first images were of my friends during that day. In a way, little has changed. I like to photograph people I have known for a while, or good friends of friends of mine. I find people thru word of mouth, someone's boyfriend, sister, cousin. It feels more intimate, a bit like an extended family.


I am influenced by everything, movies, photography, billboards, books, paintings, graffiti. I am looking and absorbing all I can see with my eyes. In regards to photography, early on my strongest influences were Mario Cravo Neto, a Brazilian photographer working mostly with dark figures and nudes. His work is sensational, and early on influenced mine very much. Then when I moved to the US, I was marveled by the work of the twin brothers Starn. It had little direct influence on my personal work, but it opened my mind for taking photography as a serious form of expression. I also love the lifetime works of Nan Goldin, Leon Levinstein and the photography in Julian Schnabel's movies.


It is a privilege for me to be able to photograph my close friends and extended family in the nude, honest and free. I photograph the nude as a natural essence of who we are.  Although we are sexual beings, I am not interested in erotic photography.  I am very respectful of my sitters, and take care to develop a unique visual vocabulary, apart from the mundane. There is enough of that already out there in the world.  I stay away from it.  For me, there is a huge difference between naked and nude.  Someone feels naked when caught off guard and/or in a vulnerable situation. The nude to me is always clothed, clothed with art history references all around, almost in a way that it cannot escape it. The nude I am interested presents an inner strength and confidence that keeps them from "feeling naked".  You can see that in my work, in the natural positions and in the confident eyes of the people I photograph.


I start my creative process by imagining colors.  I don't know why, but coloration comes to me first. From there I tie in emotion, then location and last the people. I might be working 6 months into a project before I find the right person to photograph. This preliminary phase gives me time to submerge, to really feel and bring out what I am trying to say, what I am trying to express.  By the time I start photographing people, I already know what I want, the visual vocabulary is matured, so photographing people feels natural and in line with the overall emotion I am trying to convey.


As i started Bordeaux Series, i knew from the start, it to be a reductive approach: simple traditional portraits done in one single room, along with landscapes of the region. As i imagined the colors early on, i was sure it had to be reduced as well to a basic yet very classic palette: black, white and red.


The black and white paysages were taken mostly during storm weather, moving through landscape, or from the car seat as approaching the area, as well as images of pathways. The portraits cover a cycle of life, as I photographed from young to elderly. As for the landscapes, it presents a similar metaphor. I wanted to bring it closer to an idea of passage, from here to there, without defining it. Like a passage of time, a passage of this to another life. A maze like feeling, of not knowing where that path might ultimately lead you.


I mostly photograph during the magic hours at sunrise and the last 2 hours before sunset. It is not just the lighting, I think we feel different during those moments, as if emotions could stand still for a few minutes. It is beautiful to capture that feeling.


I see the body as a residence to our emotions, our soul, our inner selves.  As we bloom, and as we decay. Two paintings were ressonating inside my mind as i was photographing this series. The first one is from Klimt, titled \"Three Generation Females\" from 1905.  Klimt was part of the Vienna Secession movement, a period of interest to me in art history. The other one is from Gauguin, probably still lingering from the influence it brought to me more directly in Native series.  It is titled \"Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?\" from 1897.  I think it summorizes a question we all have, but one that i decided to use as basis to my creative source. I photograph the human in us, without shame, without regret, free and timeless.


Mona Kuhn

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