Best known for her portraits of young girls in various stages of adolescence, van Meeneʼs photographs are characterized by their exquisite use of light, formal elegance and palpable psychological tension. Girls from all stages of adolescent and post-pubescent maturity are represented, and the portraits hint at a deeper psychological weight emerging in van Meeneʼs older subjects. Girls are often presented alone, seated or leaning on a single chair against an ecru toned wall. Van Meeneʼs younger subjects often engage the camera directly, displaying all of the hopes and confusions of youth. The artistʼs older subjects, such as the one featured in this work, are knowingly more guarded in their gestural vernacular, often eschewing its directness, a complexity of mercurial energy teeming just below the surface.

Courtesy of Yancey Richardson Gallery