For Brittany Markert, photography acts as a play of mirrors where her emotions are shared. These photographic montages reveal mechanisms in the work with her apprehension of both the real and imaginary world. For her, reality is not first. Everything is more complex. Brittany Markert proves that an image is never simple. It takes one back to a history of beliefs and demands.
Brittany Markert draws her sources from intimate fashion photography. First Lina Scheynius, then, most importantly, Francesca Woodman. Brought up in Southern California, then leaving to go North to Santa Clara University, she received a degree in mathematics. Brittany Markert’s studies influence her work. Many similarities can be found there, like how to navigate through chaos just to get the perfect shot, which she only takes in black and white.
Often, her darkroom is situated only a few meters from her bed, which, for her, in this confined universe, is a way to create precision-demanding narrative. In diverse plays of time and doubling, the nudity that she stages most of the time creates a particular “tension” (that does not stop humor) and are a move away from presumably dramatic situations.
Brittany Markert always works in a state of euphoria. Getting there sometimes takes months of patience in order to concentrate this energy in her images inspired by theatre, literature, films, and memories of childhood and being in France where she lived with her parents.
It is true that since her childhood, the photographer has had an unprejudiced view of her body and those of others. With her studies, her travels, with her often painful private life, and with her passion for her art, she is curious, lucid, and capable of staging her torment, her mystery, and a few secrets. Her life is intriguing. Each of her images is a wake-up call, an act of devotion in the name of who she was and who she is becoming, walking without knowing where but moving forward to sense nature and the impact of life.
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret is a poet, critic, and a lecturer in communications at the Université de Savoie.
