Doll is a series that focuses on the art of expression through dance. Through the styling, poses, and on-location environments, this series explores the tension between motion, stillness, and how to find comfort in an uncanny in-between.

I was recently told that the models in my work looked like dressed-up dolls, and that they’re delicately placed in whatever environment I am photographing. Throughout the past few months, I wanted to tap into that more within my artistic practice and center that idea around something that is meaningful to me.

Editorial fashion images usually cater towards the ideas of direct, averted, or voyeuristic gaze that helps to frame different power dynamics. Growing up a dancer, a lot of it is also about how you’re viewed. Merging these two together, and touching on themes of queerness, the body as a performance, and clothing as a rebellion, I hope this series is able to focus on how to resist fixed identity categories that are created by the gaze.

Through deliberate styling by Josie Nolan and staged gestures modeled by lifelong dancer, Amalina Ace, the clothing is able to become extensions of the body and its language. The model appears arranged instead of autonomous, which reflects on the body from a dancer's standpoint as something that is styled, positioned, and rehearsed. Fashion and self expression does not only adorn movement, but it is also actively able to compose it.