Lisa Tomasetti
Lisa Tomasetti’s series, Vanilla and Misfortune (2005), explores the many facets of femininity. These tender, silent, contemplative images traverse the space of a lifetime, from the innocence and beauty of the growing child to the strength and power of the older female nude. There is a delicate contrast between our nostalgia for childhood lost and the selective, elusive quality of memory that shapes our histories. In each photograph there is a sense of becoming as figures seem to emerge from darkness into the stillness of the image. Those pictures often look directly into the lens, as if into a mirror, engaging the viewer with their gaze. At other times the subjects appear cocooned within the work of the image. Vanilla and Misfortune explores the journey of a woman’s self-awareness from the infinite visibility of childhood to the finite invisibility of old age. This passage describes how women reconcile through love, motherhood and solace.
[Statement courtesy of Gallery 101]
