Deana Lawson is a contemporary American photographer, whose style blends controlled composition and disarming familiarity to explore representations of blackness and collective memory. Working within an imagined space between reality and photographic remains, Lawson captures her subjects in acutely localized situations, with an empathetic eye and keen anthropological interest in black individuals in their social and physical environments. The confrontational intimacy of Lawson’s portraiture is checked by the careful arrangement of bodies and objects within the photographed space. For Lawson, the artist’s perspective and posture toward subjects are critical to shifting the tone of representation: “It’s about setting a different standard of values and saying that everyday black lives, everyday experiences, are beautiful, and powerful, and intelligent.”