Deana Lawson

Mar 3

Although we aim to celebrate Black women all year round, our first post of Black History Month is in particular celebration of Deana Lawson and her current photography exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

The exhibition is the first ever museum survey dedicated to Deana’s work and includes a selection of photographs from 2004 to the present. Born into a large family in Rochester, New York, Deana would often sit for family portraits taken by her father, who worked at Xerox. She would later channel the nostalgia and almost sacred timelessness of these photos into her own work, creating family portraits suffused with her ability to find “glamour in the quotidian”.

Deana, who had originally gone to Penn State to study business, didn’t find her artistic calling until her sophomore year. Her twin sister, Dana, made the decision to switch majors to African American studies and Comparative Literature, compelling Deana to pursue photography. Her sister, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 17, would later be forced to drop out. Deana, who was inseparable with her twin, launched herself into her work for it to become a testament to her sister’s spirit for artistic empowerment.

Deana, who would often find strangers in the street to photograph, stylises a regal quality to everyday people and their homes. Playing into the themes of family, love and desire, she offers viewers an intimate glance into the lives of those photographed. However, “familiarity doesn’t equate to access”. In their raw state of representation, Deana’s subjects maintain a sense of self-composure, that remind the viewer that they are lucky to be allowed a glimpse into their homes. This intimacy is found at the core of Deana’s work: “I photograph family, friends, and strangers, and I operate on the belief that my own being is found in union with those I take pictures of.”