M O N A K U H N   |   Evidence

Kuhn’s creative process begins with a color palette and emotion, before the artist identifies a location and finally her subjects. Her 2007 series Evidence, amongst the first bodies of work to earn the artist acclaim, is comprised of alluring figurative studies set in a French naturist colony. Inspired by the cheerful, verdant outdoors and the sense of freedom and respect she observed in the colony, Kuhn uses abstracted form to distill the essence of this environment and mindset.

The people in Mona Kuhns photographs are nude but not naked. Completely relaxed before the camera, they give the impression that nothing could clothe them better than their own skin. With a unique style, Kuhns intimate photographs of both young and old are sensual compositions of skin and wrinkles, light and shadow, gestures and gazes. She creates tautly composed images which balance sharply rendered portraits against blurred backgrounds to lure the eye and provoke the imagination. A Los Angeles-based artist of German-Brazilian ancestry, Kuhn photographs in naturist communities in France. The models are her friends, and the resulting photographs reveal a comfortable and graceful intimacy between the artist and her subjects. Containing luscious young bodies that suggest the meditative repose of classical statuary, the mood is languorous, projecting an almost Edenic eroticism that is neither sexy nor exploitative.