The Photographic Performance was created to feature the works of artist with completed bodies of work and a strong narrative. Grace Weston’s exhibition “Reclaiming the Muse“ is the third of four performances to be exhibited during 2024.  Grace’s exhibition is discussed in this GalleryTalk.

Artist Statement

Patriarchy has controlled the narrative for 10,000 years. My staged miniature photography series, RECLAIMING THE MUSE, reframes historic artworks and stories in contemporary terms. In centering women, historically cast as objects of beauty or scorn, I strive to revitalize the muse with agency, furthering the issues important to me as a contemporary female artist.

Mythos, power dynamics, gender roles, liberation, empowerment, and self-preservation are explored in this series, all with a deceptively playful overlay. Although I never depict actual people in my photographs, the human psyche is undeniably at the center of my work. I am fascinated by the psychological landscape, our search for meaning and the contradictions of human existence. So many stories, myths and artworks throughout history address these same concerns. I have found much rich source material to inspire my own interpretations for this series.

In my research, time and time again, the women in myths, folk tales, the Bible, and elsewhere are held responsible for causing both the world’s ills and the failings of men. This includes their own rapes, which are recounted in mythology with shocking frequency, and are typically deemed the woman’s fault, justifying her inevitable punishment. Of course, creating variations and reinterpretations of past tales and depictions is not a novel idea, but rather an age-old tradition, practiced throughout art history. My muses take back their power and tell their own stories. There is a rich well to draw upon from historical representations. We must remember, the old tales are fiction, and it is far past time for the retelling.

Grace Weston, 2023

Bio

Grace Weston creates narrative photography in her studio with miniature staged vignettes that address psychological themes. Among her many honors, most recently Weston made the Top 50 in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2023, and from that was awarded the additional prize of a solo show for 2024 at the Southeast Center for Photography in Greenville, South Carolina. Weston was honored with the solo exhibition in All About Photo’s Showroom for the month of November 2023. She won both First Place Overall Portfolio category as well as Gold Winner in the Fine Art Portfolio category in the 2021 Tokyo International Foto Awards. She has earned fellowships from both the Oregon Arts Commission and Artist Trust (Washington State), nominations for Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards (Oregon), and numerous grants during her career spanning more than 25 years. In 2012, she had her first European solo exhibition at Paci Contemporary in Brescia, Italy. An extensive exhibition of her work was shown at the Center for Photography in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2021. She has exhibited widely in the US, as well as Europe, Scandinavia, Russia and Japan. In 2009, she was a finalist in PhotoEspana’s Descubrimientos exhibition in Madrid, and named one of the “Nine to Watch” in the Whatcom Museum Photography Biennial (Washington) in 2008.

website: graceweston.com
instagram:  @gracewestonnphotography

link to online exhibition