Art, Desire, and the Human Form

A CONVERSATION

The Figure Turned Away

Degas, 1885. A photographer you don't know, 2024. The same morning. What travels across time when everything else changes.

There is a Seurat conté study from the 1880s for Les Poseuses in which a standing nude faces you on the page — frontal and direct, nowhere to hide. This is not a turned back; it is here on purpose, because the essay is about absorption, and absorption takes more than one posture. One hundred and forty years later, a photographer whose name you may not know made an image of a figure in morning light. She is turned away. Also absorbed. Also, entirely, herself.

7 min read · Apr 9, 2026