Justine Kurland

When I was about eight years old, I packed a sleeping bag, a tooth brush and a bottle of water and stormed out of my house. It was the first and only time I ran away and I don't even remember why, but even though I was being rebellious, I was scared. I wanted to show my mom I could live on my own, but what I really wanted was for my mom to chase after me. Fear was something that I do remember feeling when I ran away. I feel like every young girl thinks about running away but is too scared, or actually tries running away in fear, but Justine portrays the young and rebellious teenage girl in a care free, fantastical way.

Justine Kurland narrates the fantastical aspect of rebellious teenage girls and her photograph gave me such nostalgia. She set up and photographed the teenage girl run away scene in the perspective of the girls themselves. These young girls are free and fearless and don't seem to be influenced by their parents one bit. They live in a fantastical, care free perfect girl world. As we grow older, we lose that vulnerable feeling, but the way Justine constructs her narrative photograph, allowed me to feel that once again. I always think of childhood, but being able to feel that feeling just by a single photograph is magical. The way she combines the fantastical and reality is breath taking. 

Another thing I admire about Justin is how her photography and her life collide. They really influence each other and become one, especially when she had her son. It really shows her tenacity and I think that is one of the strongest traits as a photographer. She talked about risky things she has done while photographing to get the photograph she wants. She talked about this one guy who basically verbally harassed her for years. She spent years leaving him for his vulgarity, but always managed to find her way back to him. I really do admire her curiosity and tenacity. Justine works in a way that I've never really seen before. What I really enjoyed at the artist lecture was the fact that she didn't just tell you about her work, she explained it in a way to make you feel what she was feeling. Hearing Justine talk about her photographic process was captivating. Her photographs don't need explanation and stand very strong on their own, but hearing her thought process was inspiring and I'm glad that I was viewing the photographs for the first time while listening to her speak about them. I definitely want to see where I can go with the fantasical aspect of young girls.

I also really enjoyed her photographic series after she had her son. I love how she incorporated her son's interest in trains into her photographs. I liked her perfect girl world series better because it's more like my style, but I really did appreciate how she managed to balance her son and her work as much as she possibly could. I think there were some situations where she was a bit obsessive, like when she mentioned how she threw her son over a fence, but it only shows how truly dedicated to her work she really is.

Justine Kurland is definitely an artist that I'm very inspired by. An idea that I had after her artist lecture was based off of the run away girls. I want to collect a whole bunch of baby dolls and strategically place them in the woods around one girl. Of course, this idea is very vague, but it's something that came to mind after seeing Justine's work.