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Featured Artist Interview - Kate and Camilla
BY
Bianca Zen
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5 years ago:
They met. They shared. They shoot. They laughed.
5 years later:
They are still shooting together. They are still laughing together. They are Kate Steciw and Camilla Meshiea.
The duo Kate and Camilla Inc, have their hands on many disciplines of photography but what attracts them most is boudoir nude photography. We quote, “So much of our work deals with flesh in one aspect or another but, it’s really what lies beneath the flesh that interests us most. A metaphor of skin. It’s tough but breakable, it’s a membrane, a boundary but it can be traversed with pressure, force, will.
TAXI >> Kate and Camilla: Photographers based in the city that never sleeps, exuberating life and vigour. Kindly do an introduction on Kate and Camilla Inc.
Camilla Meshiea>>After graduate school we moved back to NY and worked in various jobs in the photo industry. The intensity of that and personal issues caused a big interruption in our ability to make new work. After several heated conversations we realised we needed to make a big leap in order to keep taking pictures. We decided to form a company so that we could start shooting again. Of course it’s never that simple. We shoot a lot of stuff for a variety of venues and still struggle to make our own vision, but at least now all our effort and stress is focused on our dream, not someone else’s.
TAXI >> In your resume, there was an intensive line-up of exhibitions and projects from 2001 till 2004. Were you ladies slowing down on the exhibitions after and concentrating on something else ever since?
Kate Steciw>>We’ve been told time and time again that we have a commercially viable aesthetic and, after years of art schooling and exhibiting and working nine to five jobs, we decided to give commercial work a try.
Camilla Meshiea>>We love exhibiting, we love producing work for exhibition, but right now we’re doing a juggling act between art and commerce.
TAXI >> Your projects for Sowear.com and FemalePersuasion.net are still ongoing from 2002/3 till as of date. What are these projects about and why is it taking a long time for completion?
Kate Steciw>>These are not so much ongoing projects as online galleries. So, as long as they are up, we are pleased. Of course, if invited, we’d love to furnish more work!
TAXI >> You ladies have been working together way back in the days at Smith College. Camilla, you even described yourselves as Parasitic Twin - Camilla fills the blank of Kate’s artistic conscience and Kate makes up for Camilla’s deficiency. How did you two keep this special bond together as healthily as an individual as well as working partners?
Kate Steciw>>It’s funny. We work so hard these days and spend so much time together on the job that we have to remind ourselves to be friends and spend time together just being friends!
Camilla Meshiea>>Our relationship is constantly evolving and extremely rare. We’ve been through so much together -few people can have as varied a history as we have had. Few people can endure the roller coaster we’ve ridden, but we are tightly bound, for so many reasons, and all we do is try to sustain that bond, question it and take it further.
TAXI >> Camilla, you described yourself as a repressed pervert and the reason why most people do not see what is inside your erotic photography is because you are not sure what you are seeing. How important do you think is leaving an artistic meaning open in a photograph?
Kate Steciw>>While this question is addressed to Camilla, I feel that leaving our meaning open to interpretation has always been important to us as artists. We see our work as one side of an on-going conversation.
Camilla Meshiea>>I’m not interested in drawing conclusions. Raising unanswered questions may be annoying, but I refuse to enforce a particular point of view. I think that’s simply my nature as opposed to an agenda I have for the work. Things are constantly being spelled out to us, why should we add to that? Room for interpretation is room for analysis, I think it’s important for the analytic part of the mind to be pushed.
TAXI >> In TOCA ME Flesh, you ladies described, “Flesh is resilient and susceptible, repellent and penetrable.” Please elaborate this inscription.
Kate Steciw>>So much of our work deals with flesh in one aspect or another but, it’s really what lies beneath the flesh that interests us most.
Camilla Meshiea>>Elaborate? Well, for me it’s a metaphor of skin. It’s tough but breakable, it’s a membrane, a boundary but it can be traversed with pressure, force, will.
TAXI >> In reference to Kate and Camilla Inc.’s obsession with portraiture photography, Kate, you mention that faces portray and/or betray your innermost thoughts and desires. Which kind of expression will inevitably connect a spiritual emotional between you and your model?
Camilla Meshiea>>I’m not sure I follow the question but… A successful portrait is when the model is willing to give us more than their exterior. When they are not willing to “pose” for the camera, but to BE in front of it –to really reveal themselves.
Kate Steciw>>Well put, Milla.
TAXI >> I am much assured that there are many photographers or artists whose craft you love or admire. What kind of specific photography/photographer that has that tall notch of respect and admiration higher than the rest which you ladies look up to?
K+C >>Inez VanLamsweerde and Vinhood Matadin, Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton, Brigitte Niedermair
TAXI >> Besides erotic photography, Kate and Camilla Inc. dwells in the degree beauty and fashion as well. Which part of the cloth that you pay special attention about during your fashion shoots for client (i.e. crispy collars, folded sleeves, buttock areas of pants,
etc…)?
Kate Steciw>>At the risk of contradicting myself, we care more about what is underneath the fabric.
Camilla Meshiea>>At the risk of contradicting Kate, I like to see the relationship between the article of clothing and the body.
TAXI >> Kate and Camilla, the two of you were accepted as one entity into the School of the Art Institute of Chicago when the both of started handing in collaborated portrait assignments rather than individual work. If the two of you did not collaborate and did not have to share cameras at Smith College, where/what do you think you will end up today?
Kate Steciw>>I would probably be married and living in Pennsylvania working at a camera store and, generally, hating my life.
Camilla Meshiea>>I would probably be back in London, working as a gallery slut, married to a Lebanese boy, dating a woman on the side.
TAXI >> What about erotic images and boudoir portraits that first captivated and provoked you ladies further to deem it a viable option to explore?
Kate Steciw>>I think we’ve always been intrigued by the erotic so, it seemed a logical choice.
Camilla Meshiea>>There are the usual clients -doing the erotic portraits for their partner or for posterity, but there was a subsection of the clientele who really wanted to push their sexuality. What emerged was a very particular, masculine, exhibitionistic and solitary sexuality. I was fascinated by that combination.
TAXI >> Has anyone referred to Kate and Camilla Inc. as KC or CK?
Kate Steciw>>No, but we refer to ourselves as K+C sometimes.
Camilla Meshiea>>I think Calvin Klein would sue us, but maybe we should get a partner named Fiona, and sandwich her?
TAXI >> It has been great having Kate and Camilla Inc. on our Front Seat this week. Before we end, tell us a place where you want a taxi to bring you to right now?
Kate Steciw>>I want your beautiful design Taxi to take me to well paying jobs for forward thinking, innovative, whoever!
Camilla Meshiea>>I second that emotion.
© 2006 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
They met. They shared. They shoot. They laughed.
5 years later:
They are still shooting together. They are still laughing together. They are Kate Steciw and Camilla Meshiea.
The duo Kate and Camilla Inc, have their hands on many disciplines of photography but what attracts them most is boudoir nude photography. We quote, “So much of our work deals with flesh in one aspect or another but, it’s really what lies beneath the flesh that interests us most. A metaphor of skin. It’s tough but breakable, it’s a membrane, a boundary but it can be traversed with pressure, force, will.
TAXI >> Kate and Camilla: Photographers based in the city that never sleeps, exuberating life and vigour. Kindly do an introduction on Kate and Camilla Inc.
Camilla Meshiea>>After graduate school we moved back to NY and worked in various jobs in the photo industry. The intensity of that and personal issues caused a big interruption in our ability to make new work. After several heated conversations we realised we needed to make a big leap in order to keep taking pictures. We decided to form a company so that we could start shooting again. Of course it’s never that simple. We shoot a lot of stuff for a variety of venues and still struggle to make our own vision, but at least now all our effort and stress is focused on our dream, not someone else’s.
TAXI >> In your resume, there was an intensive line-up of exhibitions and projects from 2001 till 2004. Were you ladies slowing down on the exhibitions after and concentrating on something else ever since?
Kate Steciw>>We’ve been told time and time again that we have a commercially viable aesthetic and, after years of art schooling and exhibiting and working nine to five jobs, we decided to give commercial work a try.
Camilla Meshiea>>We love exhibiting, we love producing work for exhibition, but right now we’re doing a juggling act between art and commerce.
TAXI >> Your projects for Sowear.com and FemalePersuasion.net are still ongoing from 2002/3 till as of date. What are these projects about and why is it taking a long time for completion?
Kate Steciw>>These are not so much ongoing projects as online galleries. So, as long as they are up, we are pleased. Of course, if invited, we’d love to furnish more work!
TAXI >> You ladies have been working together way back in the days at Smith College. Camilla, you even described yourselves as Parasitic Twin - Camilla fills the blank of Kate’s artistic conscience and Kate makes up for Camilla’s deficiency. How did you two keep this special bond together as healthily as an individual as well as working partners?
Kate Steciw>>It’s funny. We work so hard these days and spend so much time together on the job that we have to remind ourselves to be friends and spend time together just being friends!
Camilla Meshiea>>Our relationship is constantly evolving and extremely rare. We’ve been through so much together -few people can have as varied a history as we have had. Few people can endure the roller coaster we’ve ridden, but we are tightly bound, for so many reasons, and all we do is try to sustain that bond, question it and take it further.
TAXI >> Camilla, you described yourself as a repressed pervert and the reason why most people do not see what is inside your erotic photography is because you are not sure what you are seeing. How important do you think is leaving an artistic meaning open in a photograph?
Kate Steciw>>While this question is addressed to Camilla, I feel that leaving our meaning open to interpretation has always been important to us as artists. We see our work as one side of an on-going conversation.
Camilla Meshiea>>I’m not interested in drawing conclusions. Raising unanswered questions may be annoying, but I refuse to enforce a particular point of view. I think that’s simply my nature as opposed to an agenda I have for the work. Things are constantly being spelled out to us, why should we add to that? Room for interpretation is room for analysis, I think it’s important for the analytic part of the mind to be pushed.
TAXI >> In TOCA ME Flesh, you ladies described, “Flesh is resilient and susceptible, repellent and penetrable.” Please elaborate this inscription.
Kate Steciw>>So much of our work deals with flesh in one aspect or another but, it’s really what lies beneath the flesh that interests us most.
Camilla Meshiea>>Elaborate? Well, for me it’s a metaphor of skin. It’s tough but breakable, it’s a membrane, a boundary but it can be traversed with pressure, force, will.
TAXI >> In reference to Kate and Camilla Inc.’s obsession with portraiture photography, Kate, you mention that faces portray and/or betray your innermost thoughts and desires. Which kind of expression will inevitably connect a spiritual emotional between you and your model?
Camilla Meshiea>>I’m not sure I follow the question but… A successful portrait is when the model is willing to give us more than their exterior. When they are not willing to “pose” for the camera, but to BE in front of it –to really reveal themselves.
Kate Steciw>>Well put, Milla.
TAXI >> I am much assured that there are many photographers or artists whose craft you love or admire. What kind of specific photography/photographer that has that tall notch of respect and admiration higher than the rest which you ladies look up to?
K+C >>Inez VanLamsweerde and Vinhood Matadin, Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton, Brigitte Niedermair
TAXI >> Besides erotic photography, Kate and Camilla Inc. dwells in the degree beauty and fashion as well. Which part of the cloth that you pay special attention about during your fashion shoots for client (i.e. crispy collars, folded sleeves, buttock areas of pants,
etc…)?
Kate Steciw>>At the risk of contradicting myself, we care more about what is underneath the fabric.
Camilla Meshiea>>At the risk of contradicting Kate, I like to see the relationship between the article of clothing and the body.
TAXI >> Kate and Camilla, the two of you were accepted as one entity into the School of the Art Institute of Chicago when the both of started handing in collaborated portrait assignments rather than individual work. If the two of you did not collaborate and did not have to share cameras at Smith College, where/what do you think you will end up today?
Kate Steciw>>I would probably be married and living in Pennsylvania working at a camera store and, generally, hating my life.
Camilla Meshiea>>I would probably be back in London, working as a gallery slut, married to a Lebanese boy, dating a woman on the side.
TAXI >> What about erotic images and boudoir portraits that first captivated and provoked you ladies further to deem it a viable option to explore?
Kate Steciw>>I think we’ve always been intrigued by the erotic so, it seemed a logical choice.
Camilla Meshiea>>There are the usual clients -doing the erotic portraits for their partner or for posterity, but there was a subsection of the clientele who really wanted to push their sexuality. What emerged was a very particular, masculine, exhibitionistic and solitary sexuality. I was fascinated by that combination.
TAXI >> Has anyone referred to Kate and Camilla Inc. as KC or CK?
Kate Steciw>>No, but we refer to ourselves as K+C sometimes.
Camilla Meshiea>>I think Calvin Klein would sue us, but maybe we should get a partner named Fiona, and sandwich her?
TAXI >> It has been great having Kate and Camilla Inc. on our Front Seat this week. Before we end, tell us a place where you want a taxi to bring you to right now?
Kate Steciw>>I want your beautiful design Taxi to take me to well paying jobs for forward thinking, innovative, whoever!
Camilla Meshiea>>I second that emotion.
© 2006 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.