#paul outerbridge

EN In 1970s Los Angeles, Jo Ann Callis was juggling the care of two young children, numerous home moves, night school and a pending divorce. Despite these obstacles, she worked constantly to produce her seminal series Early Color. Influenced notably by Paul Outerbridge but also Hans Bellmer and Pierre Molinier, her cinematographic scenes capture the tensions and anxiety of a claustrophobic domestic huis clos where freedom, pleasure and curiosity are bridled. Hitchcockian by their meticulous composition, Callis created all the decors for the series, that she photographed for the most part in her converted Los Angeles garage, with friends as models and the domestic objects at hand as props - string, tape, sheets, lamps, sand, honey and her household chairs, tables and plants. Considered subversive at the time, Jo Ann Callis's crafted images are "enigmatic visual metaphors of power and play, dominance and submission, desire and intimacy, drawing from the challenges she faced as a divorced mother of two in her mid-30s reentering the world on her own terms" (Miss Rosen, AnOther Magazine, 2022)