ARTIST STATEMENT

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Christia Balela started photography as a hobby just over a year ago, with the primary motive of capturing objects and buildings that caught her eye. As she learnt more about photography, she realised it was way more than just images. She looks at photography as an experience because it allows for interpretation and evokes emotions. Regardless of how old an image is, just by looking at it you connect with it.

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Her latest series is call ‘laid bare’. The aim of the series was to capture her muse when most vulnerable, when most unveiled. They spoke about insecurities, fears and life experience and from what she had learnt about her muse she decided to do a milk bath shoot. The concept was inspired by the image of Whoopi Goldberg in a milk bath by Annie Leibovitz. Leibovitz had seen a theatre piece from Whoopi in which she joked about using bleach to clarify her skin and decided to use milk to represent that. The racial connotations to the image related to her muse as she also had experience with skin bleaching issues.

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