Hannah Traore Gallery is proud to present Heavy in White, a photography series by Lynn Bianchi (b. 1944), which reframes and reimagines body consciousness through surrealist, nude portraiture. Embarking on her creative practice in 1998 at the age of thirty-eight, Bianchi appreciated her practice as a place where generational biases about beauty could unravel and diffuse—shedding insecurity and self-judgement to make space for gentleness and self-acceptance.
All the photo shoots for Heavy in White were staged at the artist’s Tribeca loft, where she would instruct her models to wrap their hair in sheaths of rubber and assign them various tasks—from eating bowls of pasta to reclining on marble sculptures. Her subjects would then perform these prompted actions in Bianchi’s hand-crafted, white-coated sets, which were composed of raw fabric draped from her high ceilings and props sourced from antique stores and her mother’s home. With whimsical accessories cloaking their bare skin and props at the ready for their play, the artist facilitated an atmosphere where her muses could feel at ease and shed any insecurity or self-awareness of being observed by society.
Depicted through themes including “Body Studies,” “Caryatids,” “Dessert Eaters,” and “Spaghetti Eaters,” Bianchi relished behind the camera as her muses reclined into each other’s flesh and filled their mouths with confections. Captured on infrared black-and-white film, Bianchi personally developed each print in the darkroom. As an intuitive, self-taught photographer, she savored the analog process of fixing and washing every edition by hand. And, with the mindset of an alchemist rather than a technical printmaker, she treated her warm-shaded prints with a gold toner to give the images’ flattened, white-washed scenes more luminous dimension. These photographs have the effect of classical charcoal drawings; each physique is timeless and exists in active defiance of the idea that any one body type should ever have to be “in style.”
Now almost 83 years old, Lynn often reflects on being raised by a grandmother and mother who often commented on their own and other women’s weight, the inevitable fluctuations of female bodies remains an enduring fascination for Bianchi. To heal those self-critical voices—rooted in sexualization and objectification—the artist sought to depict the naked body in earnest, beholding the female form without trying to control it. Her work serves as a reminder that the most profound change we can aspire to is a determination to be comfortable in our own skin. The artist comprehends “heavy” as a state of abundance rather than burden. She wants us to see what she sees; she wants us to feel what she feels: that her figures are born of light and cast in miracles. Bianchi’s awe is infectious.
Hannah Traore Gallery is proud to present Heavy in White, a photography series by Lynn Bianchi (b. 1944), which reframes and reimagines body consciousness through surrealist, nude portraiture. Embarking on her creative practice in 1998 at the age of thirty-eight, Bianchi appreciated her practice as a place where generational biases about beauty could unravel and diffuse—shedding insecurity and self-judgement to make space for gentleness and self-acceptance.
All the photo shoots for Heavy in White were staged at the artist’s Tribeca loft, where she would instruct her models to wrap their hair in sheaths of rubber and assign them various tasks—from eating bowls of pasta to reclining on marble sculptures. Her subjects would then perform these prompted actions in Bianchi’s hand-crafted, white-coated sets, which were composed of raw fabric draped from her high ceilings and props sourced from antique stores and her mother’s home. With whimsical accessories cloaking their bare skin and props at the ready for their play, the artist facilitated an atmosphere where her muses could feel at ease and shed any insecurity or self-awareness of being observed by society.
Depicted through themes including “Body Studies,” “Caryatids,” “Dessert Eaters,” and “Spaghetti Eaters,” Bianchi relished behind the camera as her muses reclined into each other’s flesh and filled their mouths with confections. Captured on infrared black-and-white film, Bianchi personally developed each print in the darkroom. As an intuitive, self-taught photographer, she savored the analog process of fixing and washing every edition by hand. And, with the mindset of an alchemist rather than a technical printmaker, she treated her warm-shaded prints with a gold toner to give the images’ flattened, white-washed scenes more luminous dimension. These photographs have the effect of classical charcoal drawings; each physique is timeless and exists in active defiance of the idea that any one body type should ever have to be “in style.”
Now almost 83 years old, Lynn often reflects on being raised by a grandmother and mother who often commented on their own and other women’s weight, the inevitable fluctuations of female bodies remains an enduring fascination for Bianchi. To heal those self-critical voices—rooted in sexualization and objectification—the artist sought to depict the naked body in earnest, beholding the female form without trying to control it. Her work serves as a reminder that the most profound change we can aspire to is a determination to be comfortable in our own skin. The artist comprehends “heavy” as a state of abundance rather than burden. She wants us to see what she sees; she wants us to feel what she feels: that her figures are born of light and cast in miracles. Bianchi’s awe is infectious.
