Sleeping Beauty is an exhibition that features photographic work by Lydia Panas featuring portraits of women displaying strength in their vulnerability. "My current work centers on the internal conflicts and challenges women face in a world struggling to embrace their power. My process navigates the relationship between photographer and subject. Countering stereotypes of the compliant female, the women in my photographs and videos challenge the viewer with a straightforward gaze, serious and lacking in complicity. The repetition in the poses and the setting reinforces the notion that the portraits are less about the individual but rather, an impression, as each image builds successively upon the previous one. The cumulative effect echoes the complex feelings of vulnerability, conflict, and anger within each of us, resulting in a discomfiting connection between subject and viewer."

About Lydia Panas

Lydia Panas' work explores our collective societal relationship to women. Her practice is attentive to the psyche and what lies below the surface in an attempt to probe questions about who we are and what we want to become. Panas’ work has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries in the U.S. and internationally. Her works are represented in public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Palm Springs Art Museum, Allentown Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago among others. Her work has appeared in many media outlets such as The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, French Photo, and Hyperallergic. Panas holds degrees from Boston College, the School of Visual Arts, and New York University/International Center of Photography. She is the recipient of a Whitney Museum Independent Study Fellowship and a CFEVA Fellowship. Two monographs of her work have been published, Falling from Grace (Conveyor Arts 2016) and The Mark of Abel (Kehrer Verlag 2012), which was named a best coffee table book by the Daily Beast."

On view: Bailey Contemporary Arts - January 7 - March 22, 2022