Across three photo series, photographer and filmmaker Sophie Dezhao Jin explores ways of seeing the body. Born in China and based in the United States since the age of 13, Sophie Dezhao Jin’s portraiture explores the body as it relates to identity from the perspective of profound cultural dualities. Self-portrait (2023), Absent Present (2023), and The Light in Her Essence (2023) show the breadth of her work in three distinct and visually rich portrait series.
In Self-portrait and Absent Presence (2023), Jin turns the camera on herself. Both are shot in black-and-white, in digital and 120mm film, respectively. In Self-portrait, Jin shoots mostly in close-up, with dramatic shadows, dissecting herself into small pieces or gazing at herself in the mirror. She’s grasping at identification, knowability, and selfhood but is left wanting.
In one striking image, her arm dangles precipitously over the edge of a bathtub. In another, the spine protrudes violently; in yet another, the ribs nearly puncture the skin. If you look too quickly, the arm is almost lifeless, and the subject is almost a corpse. These are jagged self-portraits—a subject seeking wholeness.
In Absent Presence, both Jin and the camera take a step back, now examining her body from a distance. This moody photo series finds Jin isolated and small. Here, Jin is the other to herself—as both subject and artist, she is unknowable, distant, and cold.
In one image, she fades into nothingness, the barren woods appearing frigid behind her. In another, one self fades with outstretched arms into an inverted self, both cloaked in the dark night. Where Self-portrait is tragically visceral, Absent Presence is darkly ethereal. Jin is displaced, in flux, both physically and spiritually. These images may as well be memories.
In The Light In Her Essence, the artist’s gaze is suddenly born anew. No longer working in self-portrait, Jin turns the camera on a new body. Notably, when Jin’s subject changes to another, so does her sense of self.
Now in 120mm color photography, we see a nude woman bathed in light and warmth. She lies across her bed, limbs at ease. When she gazes into the camera, there is recognition and familiarity—no fear, no lust. She is comfortable in her skin, intimate with the camera.
Unlike Jin as the subject in Self-portrait and Absent Presence, the woman here is free. She is at home. She is grounded. As viewers, we’re quick to wonder: Why is this woman afforded a confidence and integrity missing from Self-portrait and Absent Presence?
Throughout each series, Jin explores complex questions of self, perspective, and identity. When are we our truest selves? Where are we our truest selves?
Taken as a body of work, a deeply human artist emerges. Self-portrait (2023), Absent Present (2023), and The Light in Her Essence (2023) announce Jin as a portrait artist of our times. She is torn between viewer and voyeur, artist and subject, dark and light, self and other, home and stranger.
This particular article has been contributed by Lily Majteles.