One foot in reality, the other in a dream, Brandy Eve Allen likes to play with dimensions. Since 2010, she creates self-portraits and portraits of her friends, using rare and expired film and creates the beautiful series named Dreamscapes.
“I’m a paradoxe but I want to say everything I have got to tell“. These words still resonate, found on Brandy’s website. Her photos are as remarkable as she is, they fascinate us as much as they captivate. Her breakthrough into the world of photography ? She explains : “I wanted to be seen, to be heard, I wanted to show different aspects of my personality without hiding anything“. Since, she is in a symbiotic relationship with her cameras – Nikon FE and F3. With her curiosity she becomes an observer, only needing to open her eyes to be navigated by colours and atmospheres to create these spectacular images. She is inspired by nature as much as mankind which allows a “complete range of emotions“.
An outer body experience
“The person that I am in front of my lens and the one I am in reality doesn’t always match“. She doesn’t always reveal all her sides of her personality during her photo shootings. “I express the other sides of myself through painting, cooking, or even writing“, she confides. Photography allows her to access another intimate dimension situated half-way between her conscience and inconscience. “My best memories of shooting ? Those that I have no recollection“. A muse, a beautiful light or an inspiring setting is all that is needed to disconnect photography from reality. If she follows her intuition when shooting, she also tells us “there is something in her that overcomes in her“. Brandys universe is composed of dualities that leave the spectator the ease to interpret these clichés how they like, depending on their intuition and sensibility. Too many ambiguities ? Her univers exceeds your grasp ? Brandy invites us to let go, as finally, with her work “there is no need to understand“.
© Brandy Eve Allen
Translated by Molly Sisson
