A Closer Look: Irina Davis

Salamatina Gallery
Mar 25, 2015 2:31PM

World War II had crippling economic consequences for Russia, which struggled mightily in its wake while the United States prospered, both economically and culturally; the 1940s and 50s proved to be an ebullient period for America. Consequently, it comes as no surprise that Russian women were expected to be modest and culturally conservative, a reflection of the country’s malaise. Thus Russia never had the chance to enjoy the upbeat, prosperous “pin-up” times of America's postwar period. In fact, playful American pin-up art was considered politically incorrect in Soviet Russia. It was deemed decadent and flat-out immoral – the product of a culture that could never understand the true, adverse nature of the human condition.

By photographing exclusively Russian immigrant women in traditional all-American pin-up attire and poses, Irina Davis invents a Russian variation of the pin-up girl, one that does not employ an objectifying male gaze, bur rather communicates true beauty, femininity, and sexuality. Hybridizing east and west, Davis’s photographs convey a crisis of Russian national identity, and the concomitant frustration and confusion stemming from self-identification with the Old Country, the New World and a diaspora caught between them. With frank honesty and humor, Davis’s work brings the viewer in with seductive images, forcing the viewer to identify with her conflicted subjects.

Salamatina Gallery