ISLA WILLIAMS

We are often told that femininity is about beauty. From cinema to advertising, we are shown that the female body is designed to be sexualised. Shapes reflect stages of motherhood, seduction, and submission. But what does it really mean to live as a woman?

Looking beyond these messages that tell us how to value and perceive, what is the true experience of womanhood in the 21st Century?

Light and Dark explores the dualities of being female in the contemporary world. My body of photography expresses our lightness – the sensitivity and rawness that form part of our nature. It also reveals the darkness. Hidden strengths. Power, even when repressed.

Across 70 black and white photographs, you will see women the way that I do. Shins, elbows, hands, breasts. They are not portrayed as objects through a male gaze. They do not represent conformity or objectification. Emerging from the blackness, these women shimmer and confront us.

Masculinity and femininity are bound. In one photo, the torso of an outstretched female dominates her own space, brave and unashamed. In another, legs and arms cross in a moment of vulnerability and contemplation.

Across the collection, some human shapes even become textured and blurred out of our focus – the ambiguity of a ribcage peaking in the centre is easily mistaken for the harsh terrain of a landscape. Light and Dark shows us the comfort of women occupying their own skin. Their bodies are vessels of human life. They breathe, feel, and empower us to look within ourselves.

This photographic collection is not about my own journey. It is about the journey of all women in today’s media-driven world. It is about the way this world shapes our human experience – and what happens when we break free.