Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph

Deana Lawson is one of the most intriguing photographers of her generation. Over the last ten years, she has created a visionary language to describe identities through intimate portraiture and striking accounts of ceremonies and rituals.

Using medium- and large-format cameras, Lawson works with models she meets in the United States and on travels in the Caribbean and Africa to construct arresting, highly structured, and deliberately theatrical scenes. Each image is animated by an exquisite range of colour and attention to surprising details, such as bedding and furniture in domestic interiors or lush plants in Edenic gardens. The body—often nude—is central to her work.

Throughout her photography, which invites comparison to the work of Diane Arbus, Jeff Wall, and Carrie Mae Weems, Lawson seeks to portray the personal and the powerful in black life.

Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph features forty beautifully reproduced photographs, an essay by the acclaimed writer Zadie Smith, and an expansive conversation with the filmmaker Arthur Jafa.