Seven female erotic dancers...two women photographers with two different points of view...one gallery. Blue Ruin Gallery is pleased to welcome professional photographers Mara Rago and Venus with their spicy exhibit: Stripped. Here, Rago and Venus turn their lenses on the edgy subject of exotic dancers and expose the strong, tender, fun-loving, and inspiring women behind the g-strings.
Rago, known for her fine art photographs and studio work, and Venus, an established Pittsburgh photographer specializing in black-and-white portraits, embarked on this collaboration expecting to shoot a different style of show altogether. Originally they sought to photograph dancers at their clubs, getting action shots and making the most of the live club atmosphere. When they found this kind of access to the dancers was forbidden, they opted to start with studio sessions to see what developed.
Setting the mood with the right music and atmosphere—but working separately (they agreed not to watch each other shoot)—the photographers were able to catch their dancers being relaxed and natural, fully removed from the club setting. Confronted with women they describe as “intimidatingly gorgeous,” both women wanted their photos to avoid, says Venus, “the icy cold stare” prominent in many pop culture images, something she feels “distances and depersonalizes the subjects from their viewers.”
“Their bodies are not only beautiful, but very flexible and athletic,” Venus points out. “My goal was to capture the beauty and glamour of dancing on stage and the unique, classic, timeless sensuousness of each talented dancer.”
Rago, as always, worked from her personal credo: “The soul of my subject, the soul in between, the soul of my self. These three combined create my art.” She didn’t want “sexy” in these photos; even though the dancers “pour out eroticism,” she sought purity.
The collaborators were also curious about what secrets their photos would reveal: “Do they feel pretty when they look in the mirror? How does it feel to be stared at and scrutinized on stage? Or worse: ignored when they are trying their best?” Venus wondered.
The two photographers, despite shooting the same dancers, found their results to be amazingly different: Venus’s about the sensuous striptease and Rago’s being more natural, intimate, and soft. As such, Rago also notes that the show expresses hidden sides of the potographers themselves as well.