The immediacy of Vee Speers’ imagery is overwhelming. In her past series, which capture the last days of childhood and then eternalize the fragile beauty of adolescence, faces look directly at the viewer to create a quietly dramatic tension. Wearing different kinds of costumes and masks, the proud boys and girls are transported to another dimension where the photographer seems to uncover their hidden secrets. Growing older, the children become glowingly beautiful adolescents with penetrating, inquiring expressions.
In her latest series Botanica, Vee Speers photographs flowers as she would a person, eternalising each and every one. Presented for the first time in Luxembourg, this series symbolises a moment of peaceful solitude in a world that is becoming increasingly complex, creating a quiet space away from the chaos of everyday life, like a secret garden the artist is carefully cultivating. Adopting the same procedure as for her human portraits, Vee Speers photographs the flowers in black and white, then subtly colors them to enhance and transform them. The portraits feel ethereal through their fresh new hues, not natural enough to be the mirror of our reality, but animated by a powerful breath of new life.
Vee Speers, a Paris-based Australian artist, fell in love with photography at an early age, assisting her father in the darkroom, mesmerized by seeing his portraits appear like magic. After 4 years in art school in Brisbane in the 80’s, Speers worked as a Stills Photographer at the ABC Television in Sydney then decided to move to the chaos of Paris for fresh inspiration. By the end of the 90’s, Speers’ path was being forged as a photo artist, and since then she has been engaging viewers with the dramatic tension of her portraits and her unique pallet of color.
Speers has exhibited in museums, galleries, festivals and International Art Fairs in London, Paris, Miami, NYC, Atlanta, China, Ireland, Singapore, Japan, Tunisia, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Luxembourg and Athens and her work has been published on the covers of BLINK, Fotomagazin Germany, Zoom, Public Art, Photo International, Images Magazine, A Conceptual Magazine, The British Journal of Photography, Genti di Fotografia, Italy, The Sunday Times UK, Russian Photo and Video, Swedish Photo with features in Shooter, Zoom, Art Investor, Germany, Shots UK, Photo District News NYC, Photographica Tokyo, EYEMAZING, American Black + White, Milk, Fotomagazin, Chinese Photography, Bloom, Arte Al Limite, etc.
Her book ‘Bordello’ with a foreword by Karl Lagerfeld is available worldwide, and her second book ‘The Birthday Party’ was released in October 2008 by Dewi Lewis, UK and has sold out. Her recent monograph Bulletproof was released in July 2014 by Kehrer Verlag.
Vee Speers, Secret Garden
September 16 – October 29, 2016
Vernissage on Friday September 16 from 6PM to 9PM
Wild Project Gallery
22, rue Louvigny L-1946
Luxembourg
www.wildprojectgallery.com
