By Joël Riff, for the publication of My photo books, November, 2019
Lina Scheynius takes photographs. She picks flowers, kisses on the mouth, pulls on her panties, sheds tears, arches her back, rumples a sheet, waits, clutches a body part, stares in the eyes, stretches her legs, moves an insect, drinks tea, adjusts a curtain, travels, brushes her teeth, shows her breast, washes her hair, eats a fruit, shakes a hand, removes a bandage, waits patiently, flies over clouds, licks a shoulder, spreads her thighs, opens a door, holds her breath, looks away, bleeds, and all under a perfect lighting, because it’s hers.
Lina Scheynius captures. Huntress, she tames. Her urge to do so was born out of a need to reclaim her image. Modeling had expropriated it. From being a sought-after model, she decided, and has succeeded, to pass through to the other side of the mirror. Now it’s only a question of offering herself to herself. Today, to aim, hold and shoot are part of the photographer’s everyday life. Self-representation is a discipline. And of course the artist gives herself over even when she is not featuring herself. Her production requires her to be perpetually her own prey. She sees dying, and birthing. And living.
Lina Scheynius unpeels. She undresses. The bathroom and kitchen seem to be her preferred rooms. Spaces of convenience. From the cabinet to the camera, a room story unfurls. Lovers in one, bouquets in the other, and vice versa. In her creations, the less hair there is, the more petals there are. If there is introspection, the artist doesn’t indulge in it. In the calm, the serenity and delicacy, she maintains a polite informality. But it’s not because the world is flooded with selfies, that her imagery has to moult into such junk food.
Lina Scheynius develops a pronominal movement. The years go by. A woman develops herself. Her eye is honed. And the moods pour out. With spit on lips, blood on a cock, tears in the eyes. It’s important to understand that with all of her states, we catch the reflection, thinly veiled. Her art, as full- frontal as it is, remains but an interface that gives us access only to what the artist chooses. Technology has turned the lexicon of friendship upside-down. Noisy, confidentiality no longer whispers. And censorship would almost be considered a reward, as it at once rages against and uplifts the artist’s profile.
Lina Scheynius sometimes suffers shadows. For an artist working with light, it’s the payoff. The sun seemed to paint on her skin like a canvas. While her images and the workings of the internet grow in tandem, some incompatibilities arise like against a sharp blade. Tacit regulation ghosts what goes beyond its limits. Depending on the moment, tolerance for the explicit fluctuates, and with it goes the entire history of the image. Over audacious scandals, standardizing cursors move, by default. Creators feed this parade. The key is to keep your eyes open.
Lina Scheynius resists. The free space that the web created for her a decade ago has now become one that oppresses her voice, through vicious moderation of content. The intimidations are underground. While social media platforms increasingly restrict their definition of decency, coming closer and closer to our idea of vulgarity, the artist finds through the pages of her books an uncompromising showcase. A refuge. The paper is simply a surface on which appear beautiful shots. Removed from the public sphere, withdrawn from external realities, each book is perused behind closed doors.
Lina Scheynius does not share herself. All her works skirt, graze and tickle this evidence, in a game of crazy sensuality. She prolongs a foreplay that never ends. Nothing goes in. Nothing comes out. The intimate, by definition, doesn’t express itself. Its etymology reminds us that this is the extreme superlative of interiority. It’s why each of her framings reinforces everything she does not show us. Remaining largely a secret. Page after page, she highlights what is hidden, what escapes representation. She insists on the existence of what does not concern us. So without covering up this brazenness, let’s dare a naked rapport with her images.
Lina Scheynius speaks for herself. And if a part of voyeurism can animate her audience, it only supports the unilateral dimensions of movement between her eyes and ours. Her vision is not encumbered by the thickness of moral negotiation. The Jantelagen, a celebrated code of conduct in Scandinavian culture, has no hold here. Being an artist structurally transgresses this law. Of course, all sensitivities are specific. And as always, the subjects of her existential excursions are entrusted in the raw. A permanent gravity reigns. Elsewhere, this would conjure obscenity. Here, raw fascination perseveres.