From the series Photo-Bodies
L. Mikelle Standbridge, Doing Time; a love story #1, photography and mixed media, 5.5 x 4 in. Edition 1 of 9, SOLD
INTRODUCTION
As part of the Photo-Bodies series, this piece, Doing Time; A love story, is actually made up of an ensemble of prints, forming a tactile collection. This mini-photo album, this physical assembling of life moments of "Signorina F" - and her body as memory and clairvoyant - is made up of flashes, flashbacks, and flash-forwards, as lived out on and through her body.
- L. Mikelle Standbridge
Doing Time; A love story
L. Mikelle Standbridge
Doing time is the expression used for prisoners, and it is interesting to think about what that actually means (That your only job is Time? That you become Time? That Time is closer to being a verb than a noun and you are living the verb?) . If nothing else, "doing time" for an inmate means separation. Separation from the family and loved ones and it applies equally to those who love the inmate.
This is the story of Signorina F, some twists of fate, and how images preceded/predicted the future.
I started photographing Signorina F in 2013 and even if, at any given moment, life never seems simple, it was, looking back, a carefree time for her. I took seemingly meaningless pictures but it is only now that I can see that our collaboration of making pictures together on that first afternoon was a predecessor, a prediction, a Tarot card kind of event. Those images, that I took home and elaborated in Photoshop, I could never use. I didn't know what they meant. For example I had added a hand in a box in the corner of one of the scenes, as if there should be a caress, but it is isolated in a separate cell. I added to her portrait a mask. Why? We did images of gazing out the window, looking through grids, and hands lingering on the lock of the window. Why would I use these themes? I didn't know. Also, I wondered if the symbolism of her tattoos - a skull, a key the literal size of a jail key, a bleeding sacred heart wrapped in thorns, toys - hadn't in some way anticipated the future, as if she had actually inscribed destiny on her body.
I returned one year later, January 2014, to photograph Signorina F during her first pregnancy. There was a new partner on the scene, she was in love, and this was the fruit of their intimacy. February 2014, the newspaper headlines read, "Taxi driver killed over an argument about pedestrian rights". Signorina F partner, 49 year old computer consultant, lost his temper when he and she, 9 months pregnant, were almost hit by a taxi driver as they were traversing the crosswalk. A quarrel ensued between her partner and the driver. The scene went into slow motion - the taxi driver got out of the car, they exchanged words, a shove, the taxi driver lost his balance, fell, hit his head. The driver seemed ok, but died later that day from a brain hemorrhage. This was of course a totally unintended ending.
During the three days that followed, her partner was held in jail and Signorina F, crying for 24 hours, gave birth without his presence. Then, in the time frame between the fatal event and it going to trial - almost two years- they conceived another child. This was a period of house arrest for him, but between those four walls, the three of them filled the world. I returned in November of 2016 to photograph this second pregnancy. I photographed her in her ninth month, and I returned when the baby was a few weeks old. The photographs I took of the new born seemed to be about the unpredictability of life and death, their entwinement, but also about being swept away by the delicacy and faith of innocence. Shortly thereafter, on a cold January day, they received the verdict - a punishment with unprecedented severity - that he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years.
Now in 2020, we are living in the time of the COVID-19 lockdown, and Italy has been hit extremely hard, registering anywhere between 500 and 1,000 deaths everyday for months. Inmates have been protesting against the lack of protection against the Corona Virus in prison, and also due to a reduced staff, certain inmates have been liberated, being granted permission to go home until the pandemic subsides.
With all the irony of history, prisoners are released and the rest of society is under house arrest so to speak. Roles are inverted and "free" citizens are in isolation. But for Signorina F living as a single mom all these years and whose love remained constant for her partner and the father of her two children, this pandemic has delivered her the possibility of having her man come home for a short period of time.
L. Mikelle Standbridge, Doing Time; a love story #2, photography and mixed media, 5.5 x 4 in. Edition 1 of 9
L. Mikelle Standbridge, Doing Time; a love story #3, photography and mixed media, 6 x 4 in. Edition 1 of 9
L. Mikelle Standbridge, Doing Time; a love story #4, photography and mixed media, 8 x 6 in. Edition 1 of 9
Below are more images from L. Mikelle Standbridge's Doing Time: a Love Story series. Not all of these works are on display in this exhibition but are available.
BIOGRAPHY
L. Mikelle has her B.F.A. from San Francisco State University and during her degree, she integrated 3 years in France to study French, darkroom printing, and Art History at the Univ. of Paris. She was then awarded a scholarship to the Univ. of Chicago where she got her M.F.A in Photography. She taught photography in Chicago at Columbia College and was also awarded two years in a row the CAAP grant (Chicago Artists Assistance Program) by the City of Chicago. She exhibits in international fairs and at Paratissima Turin, from among the hundreds of artists exhibiting, she was chosen as among the top 15. She has been a finalist in multiple Art Photography contests and consequently invited to exhibit, for example, at the Fotissima Fair, Turin, on behalf of Nikon Talent, at the ‘Triennale of Italian Photography" in Venice, and "The European Festival of Nude Photography (FEPN) in Arles, Fr. She also exhibited this last summer at the Gallerie Huit in Arles during the most prestigious photo event in Europe, Les Rencontres. L. Mikelle, currently living in Milan, is represented by the Milan gallery "Gli Eroici Furori – Contemporary Art." and is as well the founder of the non-profit artist association "Casa Regis - Culture and Contemporary Art
http://www.standbridge.net | @l.mikellestandbridge