VEE SPEERS , FASHIONED BY NATURE
The online reading room offers you a retrospective introduction to Australian-French artist Vee Speers' creative process and statement spanning the past two decades, showcasing making-of videos, quotes and anecdotes.

  • "I don’t really fit the classic description of a photographer. Rather, I use photography as a tool to tell stories. Even though my images are set in a studio and the scenes are built from scratch I don’t like fake emotion from the model, so my main focus is to create an image that is believable, and evokes an emotion that feels real. My work always has an underlying tension which may either be diffused or accentuated by my aesthetic approach."

    Vee Speers
     
  • Video credit: The LA Review of Books
  • Karl Lagerfeld said that she revealed beauty where beauty was terribly absent. Most of all, Vee Speers is one of...

    Karl Lagerfeld said that she revealed beauty where beauty was terribly absent. Most of all, Vee Speers is one of those photographers whose works are instantly recognisable. Born in Australia and now living in Paris, she has been a presence in the art world for decades. Her oeuvre has been exhibited dozens of times around the world, and she has had works acquired by some of the most prestigious public and private collections. She is also a member of the very exclusive club of (very) great portraitists - an often-hackneyed art form which she attacks with a combination of flair and meticulous attention to detail, orchestrating a universe to which only she holds the key.

    Threading a coherent narrative throughout her nine series, Vee Speers builds a mythology of her own, exploring femininity, childhood and its mutations. Speers depicts her reflections on the female body: its evolution, sometimes its rebirth, and above all its relationship with the natural world. Femininity isn’t a new topic for the artist. Since the early 2000s it has been a constant theme in her work, with her remarkable monograph Bordello having launched her career. In charcoal tones of black and white, with a blurred focus that constructs and deconstructs her subjects, the artist has evolved toward a new style where timeless symbols forge powerful, evocative stories on the women.

    Never afraid of pushing boundaries, she takes us on an emotional journey with portraits closely associated with the forces of nature, at the crossroads of nostalgia and the contemporary. Her faded, almost old-fashioned tones mark the passage of time like a kind of illusion suspended among memories of a tragic event. A tragedy in the midst of which hope is reborn, like a phoenix from the ashes. Like the eternal metamorphoses.

     

  • Premières Oeuvres

    2001 - 2004

  • BORDELLO

    2001

    Vee Speers moved from Australia to the French capital city in 1990. After a decade living in Pigalle, the famous Paris' red light district, Speers set her studio in the walls of her neighborhood last surviving brothels. There, she brought back to life the subversive and decadent Parisian nightlife of the early 20th century. In these lavish and opulent interiors, she created seductive nudes and portraits tinted with pre-war darkness. In line with Man Ray and Brassai's aesthetic, her photographs offer a sensual exploration of the female form and are produced using a hand-rendered Fresson carbon process. The hazy outlines of the smoky black and white figures seem to dissipate in the idealistic nostalgia of past times as envisionned by the artist's mind.

     
  • ' I researched the history of the Maisons Closes during the 20's and 30's for a close reference, and at...

    " I researched the history of the Maisons Closes during the 20's and 30's for a close reference, and at the same time I discovered E.J. Bellocq's candid images of prostitutes from the 1900's in New Orleans, but rather than reproduce something already seen, I wanted the images to have a movement, a kind of soft blur in the way they may have been seen through a keyhole, or by a client passing by. Even though I chose to set Bordello in the 20's I wanted to render them timeless, and in a way draw the viewer away from the idea of prostitution, and towards a story of femininity, empowerment and sensuality."

    Vee Speers

     

     

     

  • " The twilight of Vee Speers’ great photos of beautiful women causes the viewer to merge with the surroundings of the image and enter a kind of dream-like vision of an often sordid reality.  Shapes lose definition and imagination overweighs perception. Real life is left behind.. . . . the boundaries between subject and photographer become more and more indistinct. 

    She shows beauty where beauty can be terribly absent."

    Karl Lagerfeld

  • PARISIANS

    2004
    While investigating for Bordello, Speers met an alternative Paris, its characters living outside of established conventions. These non-conformists inspired Speers to create the more playful and theatrical series of portraits entitled ​​​"Parisians".
     

    " Everyone is unique, and I believe that differences should be celebrated. "

    Vee Speers

     

  • Vee Speers' fascination with the shadowy night life and cabarets in Pigalle, Paris - and the characters she met on...
    Jean-Claude Dreyfus
    Vee Speers' fascination with the shadowy night life and cabarets in Pigalle, Paris -  and the characters she met on the way -  inspired the series Parisians  - a playful and theatrical collection of portraits of eccentrics which is a tribute to those who dare to be different. And according to the artist, Paris is one of those cities where people can express themselves, and no-one bats an eye-lid.  
     
    Parisians was was produced  in 2004 with an old large format camera and black and white polaroid film.  These  dramatic mises-en-scène are reminiscent of the early touring circus shows in Europe where spectators would peer voyeuristically into the intimate  space of an extraordinary person who was showcased for the curious onlooker.  
    One senses the photographer's keen eye for detail and symbolism as her subjects perform dramatically for the camera or pose languidly against a backdrop, offering a theatrical glimpse into their lives. 
    "It is always a privilege to be invited into someone's world and entrusted with my interpretation of the essence of who they are or how they would like to be understood. I see it as a kind of collaboration" says Speers. 

  • THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

    2007

  • While Parisians consisted in documenting what her models openly displayed through their outfits and props, The Birthday Party, which was started concomitantly, focused on the externalisation of childhood's fantasy worlds. Through games of dress up, models encompass notions of performance and play. This series of timeless portraits offers a rich and tangible illustration of youth's last imaginary landscapes and inherent narratives before teenagehood wipes these off. 

    The Birthday Party is one of Speers most iconic series, a pivotal body of work which was inspired by the artist's youngest daughter and her friends when she was just 8 years old, as well as the artist's unique childhood in Australia. It marks the first chapter of a trilogy including Bulletproof and Dystopia.

  • "Susan Bright, who wrote the introduction to my book, pointed out that it might be self portrait. As a child, sometimes I felt like singing and performing, other times I was shy. It was all about my emotions and I suppose my experiences were similar to other kids. Sometimes you feel insecure and alone, while other times you feel like the most popular kid in school. School can be tough, like growing up in a big family can be tough. You’ve got to be on your guard. I think The Birthday Party was about me and then my own kids, and then people in general."

    Vee Speers

  • Imagination Takes Flight

    Edward Kiersch, 2021

    It's a unique form of travel. One from a land of innocence and carefree joys to a subterranean haunt of bafflement and foreboding. Such an exploration demands an insightful Eye, an acute sensitivity, for a Birthday Party (2007) can be like an Expressionist painting-a canvas revealing waves of doubt together with youthful flights of imagination. 

    No ordinary celebration, it is a Sturm und Drang parade of unrest- glum-faced young girls appear in fishnet stockings, armed with weaponry and carrying dead animals. Young boys wearing gas masks are clearly ready to grapple with an unknown future. These 8-year-old boys, bare-chested, and hoping to project an air of defiance, are equally reflective of dystopia. They have been betrayed, guests at a party with little mirth and assurance that all will be well. Here there's only the recognition these celebrants are at Childhood's End. That they're poised on a perilous precipice, about to face a disfigured world morphing towards the bleak and bizarre.Youthful hope would later be palpable, resilient and powerful. Like a Phoenix, youngsters would fly, seize their moments in time and space, display the virtues that make them inviolable. How would they discover trust and magic- navigate spectres in a world turned upside down, rife with dead rats and troubling grayness?

    Read more
    Impeccably surreal, erudite, and ever provocative, Paris-based photographer Vee Speers habitually probes, jabs and subverts with her incisive, unfettered questioning. Driven to pierce perfection-the layered makeup, wigs, and 1960s outfits worn by her rat and mask-carrying children- Speers whips us into a realm of contrasts, contradictions, and conflicts-a shifting, kaleidoscopic reality of grotesqueries edged with lyricism and beauty.
  • An Iconic Picture

    An Iconic Picture

    "This is the only picture in the series that I sketched before I started, and it came out exactly the way I had drawn it. I found the outfit from a dance show she'd done at school, a kind of swingy skirt thing. Then I wanted a big Marge Simpson hairdo, something totally exaggerated to go with the circles and the balloon. A hairdresser came in and built it. He blew up a regular balloon and pasted some hair of the same colour on to it, like papier-mache. We twisted her hair around the balloon, and got it on her head. That was the hard bit. I had to get her in the right position, have her stick her neck out. It was a bit uncomfortable so I worked really fast: I wanted the photo in the can in five minutes. She's only nine."

     
    Excerpt from The Guardian 

  • THIRTEEN

    2012
  • Following The Birthday Party, Vee Speers took a closer look at her daughter’s transformation at the age of 13. Departing from childhood, she expressed a desire for independence conveyed through a choice of symbolic attires and accessories. Whether she’s spreading her feather wings, wearing blooming orchids, letting bandages lose, or depicted as Leda, or a crow whisperer, her daughter is depicted in a transitional state, taming her fears and embracing the future.
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  • Photographic Technique
    Vee Speers, Untitled #20, 2013
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    Photographic Technique

    Despite appearances, Speers shoots in black-and-white, initially using Polaroids to work out compositions as, especially while working with children, spontaneity is key. She then adds desaturated color in Photoshop, giving her images an ethereal and timeless feel.

  • BULLETPROOF

    2013

  • Six years after The Birthday Party, Vee Speers asked the same children to pose again in front of her camera as they transformed and faced the challenges of adolescence. While still soaked in childhood's fantasy, her characters' innocence and playfulness is slowly drying. Their imagery turns arid, dystopian, and calls upon their survival instinct. They become Lords of the Flies meets Peter Pan's Lost Boys heroes, gladiators, steampunk warriors and masked survivors of darker, primeaval tales. Despite these new challenges, they appear to be forming an invicible army. 

  • Vee Speers, Untitled #1, 2013 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #32, 2013 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #36, 2013 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #39, 2013 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #34, 2013 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #6, 2013 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #1, 2013
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  • DYSTOPIA

    2017
  • Vee Speers, Untitled #16, 2017
    Vee Speers, Untitled #16, 2017
  • Vee Speers, Untitled #1, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #2, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #3, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #4, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #5, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #6, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #7, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #13, 2017 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Vee Speers, Untitled #1, 2017

  • BOTANICA

    2016

  • From its early occurrences with Henry Fox Talbot or Karl Blossfeldt aiming at documenting various species, until the XXth century’s development drawing new parallels with the human form, the floral theme has played a predominant role throughout the history of photography. With Botanica, Vee Speers explores this genre following the same codes she applies to her human portraits: she shoots in black and white in front of a plain background, and colors her subjects in post-production according to her own feelings. Using an aetheral palette, each image is a distant reminder of reality crafted in a dreamy secret garden, like an invitation to the artist's very own haven of peace.

  • PHOENIX

    2020

  • “And just as the Phoenix rose from the ashes, she too will rise. Returning from the flames, clothed in nothing but her strength, more beautiful than ever before.” 

    — Shannen Heartz
  • Like a phoenix reborn from ashes, this series is an homage to anonymous women of all ages. Imbued with femininity,...
    Vee Speers, Untitled #1, 2020
     
     
    Like a phoenix reborn from ashes, this series is an homage to anonymous women of all ages. Imbued with femininity, the subject transpire a sense of determination and renewal. The flames and ashes disappear to make room to an emboldening force of liberation. There’s a kinetic, galvanizing energy here as they are on the threshold of new beginnings – elegantly revealing themselves, and sensing their hard-won independence, their mystique.  At once powerful and vulnerable, Speers’ portraits are timeless symbols of transformation to the renaissance of a new identity. 

  • TRANSCENDENCE

    2024
  • Transcendence reflects on our relationship with the planet, and explores the concept of surpassing the limitations and distractions of our...

    Transcendence reflects on our relationship with the planet, and explores the concept of surpassing the limitations and distractions of our material existence to reach unlimited possibilities. Transcendence is a meditation on what it means to be human and our inextricable connection to each other and nature. 

     

    Inspired by the sculptural forms of the Renaissance that valued beauty, harmony and balance, this quadriptych represents our relationship to the greatness and infinity of Mother Nature. 

    The male figure cradles the Globe as if it were part of his human form, and the Divine Feminine entity – Gaia - flows beyond ordinary limits of perception, to reach a higher consciousness. The cloud formations are an emotive and abstract expression of limitless inspiration, optimism and spiritual awakening.

    The young man wearing the kimono embraces both the divine masculine and feminine, shredding away the armour of societal norms to be replaced with a sense of freedom and true transcendence.  He is the modern embodiment of gender neutrality, where one gender doesn’t not need to be chosen over another, but all is celebrated at the same time.

    Does the depiction of him and what he stands for make him a hero of modern times? 

     

     
  • Making of Thisltes, 2024

    This young embodies youth and our future. He is looking down, his gaze heavy with preoccupation. He is crowned by what can be perceived as Christic allusion with prickly thistles replacing dried thorny branches. While Speers shares her concerns for the future of our planet, the choice of green and blue flowers in full bloom, infused with life and hope, suggests a positive alternative.