Aviya Wyse for Photography on a Postcard

Aviya Wyse works with traditional darkroom techniques to produce her chiaroscuro images. She uses strangers she approaches on the street or on the bus as her models (don’t try that at home), forming a narrative of nameless subjects. Not airbrushed, seductively posed or glamorously situated, the images are as honest as you like, and sometimes more so. Where modern media presents an endless stream of instantly forgettable imagery concerned with the female form, Wyse gives it to the viewer straight. 'Wyse portrays the complex relationship between creator and creation - the invisible artist who never appears but is more present than their subject, and is more exposed by every invented image.' - Dazed

Aviya is one half of Israeli photographic duo Wyse + Gabriely. Their work has become highly influential in the world that lies on the intersection between feminism and photography. Reminiscent of work by Francesca Woodman and Suzanne Junker, Wyse presents the viewer with abstracted female figures and places them within a medium that has been co-opted by manipulated images containing unattainable female body image ideals. Her work is extremely important and sets to counterbalance a co-opted art form with truth and vulnerability against it's false facade.

Aviya's photo postcards are beautiful demonstrations of this, showing images of women untouched and unedited, honest and beautiful. The women in these two pieces are seen naked, but in control, the first handling an animal and the second lit in such a way that highlights her beautiful muscular physique. Both are beautiful, both are real, and both are extremely powerful.