Jo Ann Chaus, Conversations With Myself
Aline Smithson, March 18, 2020
What are we really considering when we photograph ourselves? Often a self-portrait is a way of examining one’s own journey, allowing for psychological considerations of self. In the case of Jo Ann Chaus, her series, Conversations with Myself instead considers the collective experience of womanhood using color and light-infused performative tableaux to create and mirror inner states of being. The photographs hearken to another era when women struggled to have a voice, instead relying on an inner narrative that did not match their exterior selves. Conversations with Myself is family album that holds memory, myth, and magic.
