Christina Dy and Corinne De San Jose present A Very Short Flowering Season, a series of photographs of women’s bare backs, layered with embroidered patterns of flowers and trees.

A Very Short Flowering Season was inspired by Edward Steichen’s iconic 1924 photograph of Gloria Swanson. “Her powerful gaze behind a sheet of intricate black lace is an object so historically tied to all things womanly.”

The collaboration is between two artists and friends who ask one question: What makes a woman beautiful? 

To find the answer to their question, Dy and De San Jose asked women to pose for them. “The process of shooting was unceremonious. They come in, take their clothes off, and then leave. These are torsos of women from behind, lit neutrally, without the intimate cropping, or digital manipulation typical of nude photographs. Without faces, eyes, breasts, or the rest of the body to pose or contort, the women are reduced to forms almost generic, somewhat cold and also vulnerable. They are not given the power to present themselves the way they want to.”

Each woman is like the other. No need for comparisons as to who has the prettier face or the nicer body. They are all “woman” as defined by every curve and every flower. In them, we see all at once the many layers of a woman: beauty and empowerment, vulnerability and tragedy, mystery and revelation.

Words by Bea Davila

The idea for the collaboration was inspired by Edward Steichen’s iconic 1924 photograph of Gloria Swanson. Her powerful gaze behind a sheet of intricate black lace is an object so historically tied to all things womanly. It portrays Swanson as predatorial, mysterious, vulnerable, tragedy all at once.

What makes a woman beautiful? How long does one stay (if one does stay, that is, if one is even) beautiful? We see it all around us. We are in the inevitable process of “deterioration.” The quest to hang on to fading youth is a concern to women around us.

The process of shooting was unceremonious, with each posing session taking only a few minutes.They come in, take their clothes off, then leave. These are torsos of women from behind, lit neutrally, without the intimate cropping, or digital manipulation typical of nude photographs.Without faces, eyes, breasts, or the rest of the body to pose or contort, the women are reduced to forms almost generic, somewhat cold and also vulnerable.They are not given the power to present themselves the way they want to.

To alter these straightforward images of women, we physically superimposed embroidered sheer fabric. Embroidery has often been relegated as “women’s crafts” with patterns of flowers and trees often associated with the feminine. Like the lace in Steichen’s photograph, we wanted to add another layer, perhaps to return the beauty and delicacy expected of a naked woman that was once stripped off from the original photograph.To create something beautiful but completely different from its original context.

- Corinne de San Jose & Christina Dy
A Very Short Flowering Season
2011