FACE IT! AT STALEY-WISE

BY: Sarah Sunday

Presented by the Staley-Wise Gallery, an exclusive online exhibition entitled Face It! explores the craft of portraiture in all of its manifold forms. Showcasing emblematic photographers such as Ellen von Unwerth, Susan Meiselas, Arthur Elgort, David LaChapelle, Herb Ritts, and many more, the work surpasses any singular form of time, medium, sex, or even species. At one end of the spectrum lies color and brazen expressiveness, while darkness and a more solemn air sidles at its opposite. Nevertheless, the center of the work remains set on the transcendent and boundless study of the portrait and how so many of the greats have approached the trade. 

In one Stephanie Pfriender Stylander snapshot, Kate Moss wears thick, black sunglasses, the edges of her face cropped by the frame and her skin creamy smooth in black and white, the image exuding the essence of heightened, yet minimal elegance. In Philippe Halsman’s image of “Marilyn-Mao,” a fusion of Marilyn Monroe and former Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong is pictured with an uncanny receding-hairline beauty, adorned in a snug button-down shirt. French photographer Patrick Demarchelier’s photograph of a young, glassy-eyed lion stands out against the rest. Each individual whisker and strand of hair is captured in stunning detail, the force of the animal momentarily forgotten.

Akin to placing a microscope over the subject, portraiture is acutely intimate, and therefore possesses a force unlike many other forms of photography. The mouth, the eyes, and the suspended expression carry a plethora of emotion and information which meet the viewer readily. Through this concentrated perspective, sentiments, signals, and stories are conveyed and interpreted. As the lion charmer, Demarchelier, once noted on capturing subjects, “I have that one second, the moment she forgets about the camera, when I can make someone relax and become her real self. That is the moment I want to capture.” 

To see more of the images, visit here.