©Michele Mobley

Michele Mobley is another one of our honorable mentions for the 2016 LENSCRATCH Student Prize. In her body of work Empty Love, I cannot help but think about the inner workings of Michele’s mind when she was a young girl. Limbo has always been an interesting construct to me, and while literature describes purgatory as a lavish punishment of fire and brimstone, I find less comfort in the subtle nuances of quietness and a sterile-like ordinary. Michele’s body of work isolates figurative woman in uncomfortable circumstances that speak to domesticity and roles within a home, like a doll in a dollhouse. Her manipulation of these figures is disguised in a lovely atmosphere, flourished in white light, when in actuality each scenario is shrouded in darkness.

Michele Mobley (b. 1993) is an American photographer currently pursuing a BFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art & Design in Savannah, Georgia. Her works revolve around a façade of femininity, very rarely allowing the glances of the subjects in the frame. Michele prefers whispering to talking out loud and hopes that her photographs feel like a quiet secret you are meant to look away from, but don’t.

©Michele Mobley

Empty Love

The breadth of my work relies on lyrical body language (typically of the female form) juxtaposed with like symbols and objects as metaphor. Concealment of facial expression demands for an analyzed physique of lone subjects. Limbs stay still in limbo, fragile bodies waiting to be watched. The work shown here, entitled Empty Love, encapsulates a girl to a room, but not one with a view. White-on-white pigmentation of a domestic space confides each girl between four walls. Each photograph is like a scene in a doll house, the childlike figures coveted by a theme of supposed marriage, in absence of the other lover.

©Michele Mobley

©Michele Mobley

©Michele Mobley

©Michele Mobley

©Michele Mobley

©Michele Mobley

©Michele Mobley