The “Personal Opera” series are self-portraits in which I wanted to express the delight and sensuality of texture with such materials as organdy that were sometimes see-through allowing for mystery and feminineness as a kind of ‘daily-life’ goddess examining my age. The veiling became an active part of the shooting process to take a stand to learn to love my time of life. Actress Frances McDormand, Oscar winner, mentioned on NPR that she is a eldress questioning how fast time is going by and this term is a cornerstone of these photographs. I wish to let the viewer penetrate into my feelings so they not only see the surface or me, but that the self-portrait offers a way to get into themselves deeply and examine how they are living in this world. I believe the body must be examined, moved, re-engaged, re-found, re-addressed because it is such a powerful route to intimate photographs and contact with the great beyond. A selection of “Personal Opera,” is in the show at Alfaart Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey through March 26, www.alfaart.org
I paired my self-portraits in this collection with portraits made during the same time-period of me by Sabine Kutt. She asked me to go to my NYC haunts as an observer watching me wander for hours. She was like a deer listening to the signs in the forest –waiting for the moment she had to move in and get her shot.
We each express views of me very differently exploring another side of this later-in-life outlook. My self-portraits and her portrait sequence is on my website www.lindatroeller.com
Linda Troeller
Linda Troeller’s books and exhibitions focus on sexuality, health and community. A selection of her fifty year ongoing self-portraits, “Self-Reflection,” was exhibited at Griffin Museum, 2018. Living in the Chelsea Hotel, Schiffer, 2015 won an IPA Book Award, 2016 and focused on her twenty-year experience living in the iconic, art oriented gothic architecture. She exhibited from the book and an update shoot at Leica Gallery Los Angeles, 2019. One of the images was chosen for the March 22 to April 26, 2021 National Group Photo Exhibition opening soon at Soho Photo, New York Her book with interviews with Marion Schneider, Erotic Lives of Women, Scalo, 1998 was reviewed as one of the “most gutsy and imaginative books of the decade,” NYTimes. Aperture published her Pictures of the Year winning images in Healing Waters, 1998 and Daylight published, Orgasm, 2014. Troeller received the Woman of Achievement Award, Douglass College for her TB-AIDS DIARY, photo-collages in Color Polaroid that helped prevent discriminative stamping of HIV in passports.
Linda Troeller : The “Personal Opera”
Until March 26, 2021
Alfaart Gallery
New Brunswick, New Jersey
