Photographer #294: Dorothée Smith

Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Dorothée Smith, 1985, France, is a young conceptual photographer who studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de la Photographie in Arles. Her series Löyly is a sequence of portraits and landscapes. Löyly, Finnish for Steam, is a word that describes the raising of healthy smoke resulting from the transformation of matter; water to steam. This and her reference to Gender Trouble written by Judith Butler have resulted in a series of melancholic images. She photographs people she knows or has some connection with, showing a generation of young men and women who try to have or find an identity that surpasses the standard. They go outside of the borders in who they are as people, but also in their sexual identity. The results are stunning portraits of undetermined or dissolved identities. Dorothée has released three books with blurb. The following images come from the series Löyly, Loon and Spree.




Website: www.dorotheesmith.net