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An interview with Tasya van Ree

To refer to Tasya van Ree as simply a celebrity photographer is to do her (and yourself) a disservice. The out Los Angeles-based artist’s work isn’t just pretty faces posed in cool places – it’s raw, sexy and gives you pause. The fact that some famous people might be involved only adds to the intrigue because, somehow, they become nameless in the beauty of the photos.

“It’s really just a combination of raw imagination and uninhibited technique,” van Ree said. “Taking those two elements and turning it into what I interpret as beauty. I see it as photojournalism infiltrating fashion and finding a home in the fine art world.”

Van Ree’s new exhibit, “Untitled Project,” debuts at L.A.’s Celebrity Vault on August 11. It’s a collection of portraits that she’s taken over the last year. She describes them as “a showcase of randomness, staged performances, intimate moments, candid gestures, pondering expressions, seductive revelations, playful demeanors, and so forth.”

 

One of her frequent subjects is actress Amber Heard, who she references as her “muse.” She told us that Amber is to her as “Gala is to Salvador Dali, Kiki de Montparnasse is to Man Ray, Beatrice is to Dante Alighieri.”

This week, van Ree and Heard were organizing a protest in West Hollywood against Target for their support of anti-gay LGBT politicians. Target has now apologized for their actions and, as a result, the protest has been called off.

“I want equality for every single person in this world,” van Ree said of why they had planned to protest. Often her work is political, which van Ree said is largely part of the viewer’s own interpreation.

“It is perhaps the most complex movement of the mind,” van Ree said. “Art, when done from the heart, will always excrete a deeper level of understanding, no matter if the artist intended the meaning behind the piece or not. Of course, there is a certain direction that I start off with when I begin a project, whether it be in the medium of photography or painting, but it always seems to manifest itself into something entirely different, more complex then I ever thought it could get. It builds itself into a world where numerous people can interpret it, as oppose to just me.”

Much of her work is done in black and white, which van Ree said “emits a certain sentiment.”

“It contains a certain presence; it takes the subject matter and ignites a certain lyrical quality within it that one cannot express in words,” she said. “It dives deep into one’s subconscious and swims around in the thoughts they never knew they had. I love a beautiful black and white photograph because to me, it contains every second of time, wrapped up in one single shot. It evokes in me pleasure, melancholic sensuality, romance and every other human emotion one can think of. There’s a timelessness there, that really moves me, especially in today’s exceedingly fast pace world. There’s a comfort there, a philosophy that can be seen and not heard, a truth that holds my attention. There’s nothing else quite like it.”

If you can’t attend the “Untitled Project” exhibit in Beverly Hills, then you can view her work online at TasyaVanRee.com, where the sensuality and romance is on display. As for future works, van Ree said she’s dreaming up what her next exhibit.

“I can go in a few different directions,” she said. “These are some ideas that I’m playing with; gestures of sexuality, documentation of idiosyncrasies, reflections of the female body, light vs. dark narrative.”

All of these things already play roles in van Ree’s work, but expanding on them can only make her body of work even better.

For more information on Tasya van Ree, check out her Facebook page and you can follow her on Twitter.

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