In Character

Anja Niemi: In Character is the first career retrospective/monograph by one of the most exciting talents working in contemporary photography, whose work has emerged as a distinctive force within the venerable tradition of conceptual self-portraiture. A photo-artist who works alone - photographing, staging and acting out the characters in all of her images - Niemi is a constant presence, in character, in her work, developing complex, nuanced narratives through evocative costume and styling, her characters framed and formed within meticulously staged mise-en-scene. In her bewitching 'Darlene & Me' series, for example, she reconfigures the concept of the Hitchcock blonde within a pristine Lynchian landscape for her own visual pleasure - and ours - while in 'She Could Have Been A Cowboy' she turns the lens to a life lived under the constraints of conformity.