Ella Owusu
I make cinematic photographs that fit into the genre of documentary and fashion. The central themes of my work are race, culture, youth and identity. My work deals with real life situations and recreates them in dramatized and fictional scenes that connect with the viewer and visually engages them. A distinctive feature of my work is how I approach lighting to create a certain atmosphere and give my photographs that cinematic effect. Narrative is very important in my practice too, as how I direct my subjects sets the scene.
Some photographers who have inspired my work are Gregory Crewdson, Sally Mann, Nan Goldin and Ryan Schude. I enjoy their work because of their ability to freeze a moment of reality in a staged scene based on fact or the everyday, recreating it in a way that shocks the viewer and makes them unsure of what they see.
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Untamed Blackness
Untamed Blackness addresses race and identity, focusing on black girls who break beauty standards and use stereotypes against themselves. By staging these scenes, I am embracing the more negative associations with black women and black culture in order to create cinematic spaces for black women to perform, to play in and to subvert these stereotypes. Making this work and creating these performative spaces for young, black girls is socially significant as their realities are not yet fully acknowledged in Ireland.
Photobook