Nina Levy's Family Portraits Make Yours Look Less Frightening.

above: family resemblance, 30" x 24" EDITION OF 6 + A.P.

Artist Nina Levy has been living and working in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since 1996. A prolific photographer and sculptor, her work has been widely exhibited across the United States, including The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. where her life sized portraits of four artists' heads hung as part of the gallery reopening in 2007 (shown below):


above: a view of the installation in the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian, 2007

above: life-sized self-portrait sculpture Spectator, 2002 (also used in the 2007 National Portrait Gallery installation)

An artist who has long worked with body parts made of oil-painted resin, gypsum or clay, fiberglass, cast polyurethane and other materials for over a decade to create large outdoor sculptures, indoor installations, portrait heads, and self-portraits in many forms, created her own series of family portraits or 'family resemblance' from 2006-2008.


above: Woman with huge fist (self-portrait) 2008

She has a very impressive education, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Yale with a B.A. in English and Art in 1989 and she received a Masters in Fine Arts from The University of Chicago in 1993. She's also the mother of two young boys, whom are frequently the subjects of her recent photographs. But these aren't the kind of family photos you're used to seeing embellishing hallways and mantels.

To say that her portraits of herself and her family, consisting largely of her two sons, Archer, now 6 and Ansel, now 2, are bizarre is an understatement. Creepy and disturbing may be more appropriate descriptors for some viewers.


above: Nina's older son Archer with giant prosthetic baby head,2007

above: Nina's youngest son Ansel with giant prosthetic baby head, 2007

What's respectable, and certainly unexpected nowadays, is that there is no digital manipulation involved in her photographs. She actually sculpts the enlarged body parts or prostheses and then juxtaposes them with her subjects, so that the size relationships you see are actual real physical representations.



Babies eating babies, children cradling what look like lifeless bodies and small-framed, vulnerable boys sporting hulk-like hands and steroidal limbs are the subjects of some of her these recent photos. Here's a look at much of her family portraits and family resemblance photographs, 2006-2008:





Nina explains: "I have been interested in using fragmentation and shifts in scale to explore both discomfort with the human body and with other people"








"I started to make photographs, mostly featuring myself interacting with a series of sculptural props and prosthetics that I modeled and fabricated from clay or plaster and cast in resin," she says.



I am now the mother of two small boys, and the primary subject of my work has become my own dysfunctional parenting and the often overwhelming intensity of small children"






"Ansel, however, boycotted my last photo shoot," says Nina, "and is under-represented... but thanks to the promise of a highly desirable set of action figures, Archer was willing to assist me"







"The photographs were, and still remain, very low tech - there is no digital manipulation," says Nina. "All of the objects and people in the images exist exactly as they appear."



Special thanks to the UK's Telegraph for the quotes from the interview with Nina.

HER PORTRAIT COMMISSIONS:

Her commissioned portrait heads are available cast in resin, ultracal or gypsum painted with oils and in more traditional treatments and materials (bronze, plaster, cement). Please contact Nina Levy for more information.

See her website here.
To check out her work prior to 2002, go here.
all photos: NINA LEVY/REX FEATURES

The Puppet Show By Photographers Winkler + Noah

above: detail of Giacomo, 2008



In the photographers own words:
How can we forget the scent of dolls? A smell of plastic mixed with vanilla, with an after-taste of Roberts talcum powder, that enchanted you at the first encounter. You felt you could eat them. Their names were Sissy, Corolle, Dennis and Stellina. There they were in the play-room, you pressed a button and like magic some sang, some walked and others did a pee.

They had blue or brown eyes, with those mechanical eyelids that closed when you laid them down. But sometimes they stuck and the eyes stayed open even when they slept. Their hair was curly or straight, red, black, fair or blue. Until the day a jealous little brother cut it all off.

Now, years later, you find the same faces here. They look at you with the same big eyes.


above: Edouardo, 2008

Their names are Sofia, Luigi, Filippo, Melissa, Giordano, Gioia, Lucrezia. They talk, laugh, dance and joke… like children. Because that’s what they are.


above: Sara, 2008

Children we ask too much of, to be perfect, like dolls.


above: Cristina, 2008

Who speak at least two languages correctly, go to lessons in riding, dancing, swimming, judo, singing, fencing and athletics.


above: Julia, 2008

Children who behave themselves at the table, who know when to speak and when not to. And who don’t whine too much.


above: Lorenzo, 2008

Children who have become sons and daughters of perfection, pretense and image, manipulated by the media and the social context and who are inevitably losing their naturalness.


above: Liera, 2006

This is The Puppet Show, the new artistic project by the photographers Winkler+Noah: 30 portraits of children from two to eight years old, taken very naturally and transformed into dolls by a subtle play of retouching.


above: detail of Beatrice, 2006

The photo of Beatrice, the blonde child whose portrait is the symbol of the show, has already received two of the most important awards on the international photographic scene: American Photography of New York and publication in the volume “200 Best Photographers Worldwide” by Luerzers Archive.

The proceeds of the works displayed will go as charity to Epsilon, the non-profit organization which has always dedicated itself to the defense of children in the most distressed areas of the world.

The project will be transformed into a travelling show in Europe, collected into a book with all the photos, the credits and the stories of the protagonists. An exhibit which becomes a starting point for reflection, sociological research and introspection, to better understand ourselves and the world around us. And to understand that the best present we can give to children is to let them be children.

Here are all 30 images from the project. Please click on each photo to enlarge:






Each print is available in a limited edition; signed, numbered and embossed:




The book (shown below) is a signed, hardback bound, 80 page book limited to 500 editions, contact them to purchase.



Winkler + Noah Photography
WINKLER + NOAH
ph. +39 348.56.68.284
wn@winkler-noah.it