The Society of Females in Art, an emergent Toronto collective, held its inaugural exhibition over the past few weeks. Titled Bad Behaviour, it turns the lens on young women untethering themselves from expectations and adds a bold new voice to photography, a profession the artists say remains dominated by men.
ANYA CHIBIS
Parkour for the course Anastasia Bellka glides along a ledge atop the roofs of Moscow, her hometown. Chibis’s series showcases “the grace and the strength and the courage, but also the community” formed by parkour’s female practitioners, says fellow...
ANGELA LEWIS
Sisterhood Breanna mugs for a selfie while her younger sister Mena eyes the other lens. Photographer Angela Lewis documented the girls across four seasons in Port Dover, Ont., as an exploration of adolescence and female sibling relationships. Mena, 10,...
MAY TRUONG
Family ritual Growing up as a second-generation Canadian was “full of tensions,” says May Truong, 37. She photographed models in a home to re-create “mundane” but freighted moments of her adolescence, when filial piety clashed silently with teenage...
MICHELLE YEE
Dark reflection Michelle Yee, 39, casts herself in a dark emotional space in this self-portrait. Her exhibition pieces stem from her recent breakup with her partner of 11 years. “I found myself feeling really lost and confused,” she says. “I would go...
REGINA GARCIA
Motherhood Regina Garcia’s recent work explores themes of domesticity and “societal pressure,” says Yee. Maintaining “the appearance of perfection” while doing the deeply gratifying yet often grinding work of a mother can, as millions of moms well...
RAINA KIRN
Hard sleeper Photographer Raina Kirn, her mother and her grandmother were all “fatherless women,” says Yee. “They were forced to be really independent at a young age.” Drawing on that familial history, Kirn’s series Little Warriors celebrates “being...
BROOKE WEDLOCK
Shear rebellion Photographer Brooke Wedlock asked women to share their “bad behaviour” through gestures and movement. That opened up a safe space where they could “relieve, in a cathartic way, the stigma of behaviour perceived as bad,” says May Truong....