Matar's series "She" is currently on view at Richard Levy Gallery online. A few years ago, photographer Rania Matar spending time in Ohio, in the dead of winter. The Lebanese-born artist had been awarded a residency at Kenyon College for the 2017–18 academic year. Born in Beirut to Palestinian parents, she’d moved to the US in 1984 and made her home in Massachusetts. But she’d never been to the Midwest before, never seen the landscape and the particularities of the winter there. She found herself inspired by this new landscape she was discovering—and the young women she saw moving through it. Rania Matar, Sara and Samira, Bourj El Barajneh Refugee Camp, Beirut Lebanon (2018).Courtesy of Richard Levy Gallery and the artist Matar’s career had already been devoted to photographing young women, mainly her daughters, in the transition between girlhood and womanhood—and in Ohio, unsure of what form her work would take, she began a series of portraits of young women she’d recently met. The series, which came to be known as “She,” continued after Matar left Ohio and traveled back to Lebanon, and throughout the US. Now, a selection of these portraits is being presented in an eponymous online exhibition at Richard Levy Gallery. Together, Matar’s images are a window into a precipitous moment in the lives of young women from around the world. Recently, we spoke to Matar about the inspirations behind the series, the stories behind some of her favorite images, and where her work has been heading during quarantine. Rania Matar, Alae, Khiyam, Lebanon (2019). Courtesy of Richard Levy Gallery and the artist. How did the “She” series come about? Throughout my career, my work has been concerned with the passage from girlhood to womanhood, especially in American and Lebanese cultures. Even though these cultures might seem to have very little in common on the surface, there is a universality to growing up, even in different cultures, even in different parts of the world. When I started this particular series at Kenyon, I had finished a project called “Unspoken Conversations” about mothers and daughters, at a time when my older daughter…
Exhibitions
