As frequent readers know, I am a poor user of Instagram. The continual barrage of visual information overwhelms what my mind can process. My experience there is guided mainly by a "do what you need, then get out fast" mentality. I typically post or search, look at a few images, and then my brain shortcircuits. That means I miss a lot of great work by photographers I admire. Unfortunately. As it happened a few weeks back, this work by Donna Garcia showed before that happened. I'm so glad for that, as I found it intriguing.

The image is beautiful and elegant. It's haunted by enigma.

Despite the contemporary length and material, the nightie is plain and rather old-fashioned. The photograph is noirish but less so than most of Garcia's work. Since I can't see the woman's face, I depend on the clues given via tones and her gesture. Is she facing forward or backward? I had to get my answer from the small amount of chin shown. Her hair is lush and well-tended. The woman is still, but there is tension via her framing. On the small scale of the phone, it was challenging to identify distinctly what the woman was holding. What is she trying to tell me? Is there a reference to female fertility? Female sexuality? All these questions that flooded my brain kept me looking. The dichotomies and questions pictured within the image brought me so many new questions and brought me back to look again and again.

This work comes from a series entitled Journeyman's Soul. Garcia told me, "Throughout our lives, we move without really going anywhere, so maybe life is a place where time is an illusion, passing in the blink of an eye. Our only job will soon be to stop moving. The hopes and scars of the past will be voided. Objects will just become symbols of memories. Our own individual search for truth will be the only way that we will find the reconciliation needed for our souls to move on."

Bravo, Donna. I look forward to seeing more!

Artist Bio

Donna Garcia (she / her) is a lens-based artist, curator, educator, podcaster and editorial photographer based in Atlanta, GA. Best known for her conceptual self-portraiture and uncanny noir style, her work explores the performative potential of the medium of photography as well as the idea of how we exist within liminal space. She is a contributing editor for Lenscratch, co-host/co-founder of the Modern Art and Culture Podcast, she teaches workshops nationally and is an editorial/assignment photographer, creating work for international fashion brands to legacy environmental conservation publications.

 More of her work can be found at https://donnagarcia.com

Author Bio

Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.