Samantha Hochberg
Queen of Wands Vol II – Silhouettes
For as long as I’ve practiced art, I have been constructing a world of my own. My reality exists out of hyperfocus on the feminine experience. It derives from my own experience, my curiosities, my fantasies. Queen of Wands is an ever-growing project that I began work on during 2020, while the world held still, and I deeply entered inside myself. My interests have always remained heavily on themes of girlhood, self-image, and largely the abstraction of womanhood. I aim to create imagery that feels free of male gaze, an idyllic fantasy of women discovering each other and oneself. Although that is an impossible feat – the patriarchy is omnipresent within many of my ephemeral pieces. I find heavy inspiration in writing, fiction and nonfiction, realities in which our real-world creeps in. I pull quotes from female identifying writers and add them to layers of my imagery. As I construct my fantasy world, I must always address the real world, the difficulties in which I see female-identifying people struggling with.
I’ve long been deeply inspired by Justine Kurland’s Girl Pictures. The world she creates in those images makes my heart burst open with love and hope for all women. Communities of women and female relationships are the heart of what makes my world. In my previous work, the imagery was focused mainly on relationships with self, as my work grows I aim to bring more
women together just as Kurland has in her imagery. My ephemeral pieces are inspired by Robert Frank’s The Lines of My Hand, that body of work brings emotion to the surface. One can see the artist’s hand in each piece. I aim to bring physical elements that reach out and pull the observer closely into the artist’s world. Seeing their hand, knowing their emotions, engulfing you in their world.
Samantha Hochberg is a photographer based in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA. She is a graduate from the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in photography and video. Shooting all of her images with film and varying alternative processes, she finds inspiration from her experiences of womanhood and femininity.