About the Artwork
As a young female photographer, « OÏ » is my way of challenging mainstream sexual representations, sharing my own vision of sex and modern-day age flirting. By neglecting any pornographic or carnal imagery, I have chosen to address the subject with playful humor to create images referencing various photographic genres through metaphors and analogies. The series presents a collection of prints ranging from still lifes to portraits, with an aesthetic set in between the instinctual and the staged. By starting a dialog with the viewers, I invite them to challenge their own interpretations of sex. My intention is to awaken the viewer’s curiosity and to make them wonder about their own way of considering the idea of sex. Never directly mentioning coitus, the visuals suggest it nonetheless. The use of common objects, usually free from any sexual connotation, projects a falsely naïve and carefree perception of it. Only when the series is considered as a whole, once all the images are gathered, does the true meaning unfold and make sense.
About the Artist
Allyssa Heuze is a photographer raised in the Philippines and moved to France to pursue her studies in photography which took place in Gobelins, école de l’image, in Paris. In 2018 she was selected as one of the finalists to exhibit at the 33rd Hyères International Festival in France with her personal project Oï, a photographic meditation on the vicissitudes of sex and representation. She has also exhibited at the Galerie Madé in early 2018 and was part of a group exhibition during Unseen Amsterdam in 2017 and 2018. Today, the recent graduate (2017) continues to live in the city and works mostly in the fashion field. More recently Heuze’s photographs have appeared in publications including the Pop, Wallpaper*, Museum, Mlemonde.
