Mixed Media Artist Shae Detar Announces Debut Book, 'Another World'
Celebrating women’s bodies of all shapes and sizes.
Model-turned-artist Shae Detar just announced the release of her debut book, Another World.
Comprising a collection of hand-painted photographs, the book aims to take its viewer on a journey of the “feminine mystique,” as its contents are populated entirely and exclusively by women. Offering an alternate reality, one in which the female form is openly revered in all its variations, the book aims to celebrate and cherish different body types.
Merging contemporary art techniques with fashion photography, the self-taught artist embodies an intersectional, confident approach to femininity, one far removed from the confines of the all-consuming and objectifying male gaze. Within the book, the core female protagonists are thrown into the wilderness, freed from societal conventions and able to quietly bask in their well-deserved glory.
“For all its ethereal variety of landscape, it is women’s bodies which are the focus of the images in Another World,” reads the book’s foreward — written by Azu Nwagbogu.” 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.”
Within the book, Detar’s mystical pieces take center stage, enveloping its viewer in a sea of escapist nudes and offering a physical representation of the changing attitudes towards natural beauty and contemporary femininity.
Take a look at Detar’s new book above, and head to her website to pre-order for $60 USD.
