Petaline is an ongoing photographic body of work by Gita Cooper-van Ingen in which themes relating to intimacy, spectatorship, silence, possession and nature are addressed. Considering the duality of nature and culture as a dominant divisive order and worldview, Petaline aims to offer a space for contemplation on the subtle convergences when beauty and violence, surrender and control, viewer and image meet. Her portraits of women and intimate explorations of the body are often disorienting in how close we are to subjects whose expressions and gestures faintly recall the history of women’s physical and emotional confinement. Thus, the work confronts us with the force of our own imagination and the power of fantasy, whilst acting as a reminder of an all-too-common reality of trespassing.
