Black Table Cloth, 1979 Vintage Dye Transfer Print 20 x 24 inches
Encouraged by her teacher she discovers artistic photography and starts experimenting following her own taste and her competence in other fields in order to construct and calibrate her compositions. The artist immediately shows a strong attraction for the mis en scène and the beauty of formal ideas, drawing on the themes of her personal universe comprised by the domestic space, the same space where her marriage was failing and her children were growing up.
Callis says that in almost fifty years of career her ideas remained unchanged an the topics she feels close to herself are still gender identity, sexuality, beauty, power and subjugation, as well as all the feelings related to what’s “home”, including the constant tension that lives in the domestic space; what changed during the years is just the ways of expressing them.
Man and Plant, 1985 Vintage Cibachrome Print 24 x 30 inches
Jo Ann Callis, even though she always distanced herself from politics and has always declared that her works is detached from the simplistic interpretation of feminists, has stated that she is aware she is a “product of her time”; it’s not coincidental that the beginning of her involvement in photography corresponded to the rise of the sexual revolution although she always tried to convey a world that belonged to her exclusively.
It was by chance that her first exhibition was held at the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, since an artist friend had lent her the space. Nowadays Callis is most known for her color series but at the beginning of her career she worked extensively in black and white until she fortuitously stumbled across the works of Paul Outerbridge, that was rediscovered in the second half of the seventies, and was captivated by the emotion that his shots were able to instill. And it’s no accident that in 1981 in Los Angeles an exhibition featured both works by Callis and Outerbridge together, by paying tribute to the figure that the artists herself had always recognized as a model of inspiration.
Untitled, (Nude with String), from Early Color Portfolio, circa 1976 16 x 20 inches:9.75 x 12 inches Archival Pigment Print
Untitled, (Hand Grabbing Ankles) from Early Color Portfolio, circa 1976 16 x 20 inches Archival Pigment Print
Regarding the models she always chose for her shots we can say she had a preference for androgyny and was always fascinated by sexual ambiguity, a subject that was taboo up until a few decades ago. Looking at her photographic production in its entirety, it is evident that the matrix of her war is surrealist, considering the themes analyzed and the aesthetic choices she made that recall the surrealist photography that inspired her, such as the one of Hans Bellmer and Pierre Molinier.
Man in Tie, 1976 Vintage Dye Transfer print 24 x 20 inches
Untitled (from Ballast), 1984 Vintage Cibachrome Print 24 x 30 inches
The domestic drama that is described by her photography is always hovering between different interpretations that intrigue the artist and make her work a catalyst of sociological and cultural discourse of exceptional contemporary value even though five decades have already passed.
Untitled, (Hand and Honey) from Early Color Portfolio, circa 1976
