Shae Detar, and the book Another World – the shots were manipulated through a hand-painting technique popularised during the 19th century: she paints on top of her photographs
Shae Detar book debuts: Another World
American photographer Shae Detar debuts with Another World. Released on March 21 and produced by Skeleton Key Press, this monograph brings together the photographer’s poetics and her studies on the female body. Before a shooting, Detar usually sets out to discover remote regions of the United States – or farther afield – in search of places unspoiled by reckless human activity.
Rocky mountains, barren deserts, mountain lakes and lush forests spread across the United States and Europe. The facets of Mother Earth are reflected in the bodies of the models portrayed: round and welcoming wombs, prosperous breasts and long-limbed silhouettes like those of a jaguar.
Long hair, as red as poppies, or curly and spiky like shrubs. In some shots, the naked bodies of the models look like marble statues with gaze and muscles. In others, they abandon themselves along the slope of a promontory or among the flowers of a meadow. What unites them is the absence of material reassurances capable of concealing fragilities and flaws.
Another World: Shae Detar to defeat women’s shame and the male gaze
In his essay for Another World Azu Nwagbogu – Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) – writes: «For all its ethereal variety of landscape, it is women’s bodies which are the focus of the images in Another World. There is a sensual celebration of fleshly reality in the different poses — writhing, contorted, proudly upright or lying in relaxed repose — of these bodies. Painted-on color is used to accentuate these differences and at the same time to highlight that women’s bodies, regardless of their ‘desirability’ or conformity to conventional beauty ideals, have an absolute validity of existence independent of the consuming, objectifying male gaze».
The collage technique behind Another World: Shae Detar
The shots were manipulated by the artist through an ancient hand-painting technique popularized during the 19th century, in which she paints on top of her photographs. Detar’s passion for the collage technique dates back to her adolescence although at the time she considered it only a hobby, not knowing that one day it would become her very personal artistic language.
After many years of practice and experiments with different types of pigments and papers, she finally managed to find the technique: a combination of watercolor paper and watercolor paints, acrylics, and charcoal. The result: otherworldly settings in which the colors enhance the curves and characteristic features of each subject.
«It would be a mistake for anyone to underestimate the process of this dedicated, creative, childlike author of fine art. Artists like Shae Detar live for their craft, there is a bit of magic in its essence», states Thomas Werner – author of The Business of Fine Photography – in his foreword for Another World. For this former fashion model who later moved behind the camera, her artistic practice has in fact proved to have a strong thaumaturgical power which has allowed her to heal old childhood wounds.
Shae Detar’s healing process through photography
After a career in modeling and a brief stint in art school, Shae Detar decided to take up the camera on her husband’s advice. Since then photography, and especially female nude photography, has been a big part of her healing process. Much of her trauma is related to her upbringing in rural Pennsylvania, where she was homeschooled and raised by the moral principles of an extreme evangelical church group, during the purity movement of the 1990s.
In that context, Detar was forced to repress many aspects of her character and her life, including sexuality. The long process that led her to unlearn these feelings of shame, fear and extreme prudishness finally allowed Detar to heal her wounded relationship with her body and with all that it represents: desire, pleasure, and sensuality.
Shae Detar: exorcize the false beliefs instilled the evangelical church
The purity movement sought to provide moral and religious based sexual education directly stressing the concept of abstinence-only until marriage. By covertly promoting sexual double standards, the mind-body split, female objectification, and sexual shame it has created an unhealthy environment both for boys and girls.
The former have learned from an early age to adopt a discriminatory attitude towards the female counterpart, while the latter have suffered from physical, emotional and sexual dysfunctions and dissatisfaction over the years. In Another World – whose byline is ‘My First Book’ as if to shout to the world her pride for this milestone in her career – Detar manages to exorcize the false beliefs instilled in her mind by the evangelical church and transform shame into fierceness by celebrating what she had been used to hiding.
Another World, a thirteen-years-long journey
This thirteen-year journey led to the creation of Shae Detar’s monograph. Detar states that although sometimes turbulent, getting to represent the life of a woman with her fears, her values, and her beauty, has in fact been quite the experience and an opportunity to learn about the stories of these women to grasp their essence.
Another World is therefore a manifesto which celebrates the sexual empowerment achieved by Detar and millions of other women around the globe through both individual and collective struggles and sacrifices, still existent in many regions around the world.
Shae Detar
Shae Detar is a mixed-media artist, famous for her poetic depictions of female nudes. Detar’s work has been featured by Vogue.com, Vogue Italia, i-D Magazine, Vice, Elle UK, Marie Claire and many more. In 2023 her first monograph, Another World, was published by Skeleton Key Press.
