May was a busy month for Ellen Stagg. Stagg, photographer behind erotica site Stagg Street, not only opened her first solo show, but also released her first book. When we meet up at Fuse Gallery, she runs in a few minutes late, long platinum hair flying behind her.
Stagg’s been shooting since she was 16. She studied art at SVA, went clubbing with Scarlett Johanssen, and developed a name shooting editorial and fashion. But she was always drawn to the erotic. Starting with her muse Justine Joli, Stagg developed a name for herself shooting intimate, sundrenched nude portraits of adult models, and posting them on her website Stagg Street. This outlet has garnered international exposure, including a documentary series on IFC.com .
Her erotic photography has a tenderness and insight rare in the adult. These are hot naked girls- but also girls who laugh and goof off and think sharp thoughts. Stagg’s models are usually her friends, and she seldom directs them. “In my work, girls aren’t sex objects” she says. “They’re art objects.”
She’s compiled her best work into the coffee table book Stagg Street.
But the work she’s displaying at Fuse Gallery is different. Shot over several years with a Holga camera, they take her Stagg Street work and turn it into a sweaty, golden haze of light and flesh. Each print is multiple exposures of the same model- ghost girls interacting with their past selves. While, in her shoots for Stagg Street, Stagg might post dozens of pictures, in her “Melting Flesh” prints, she combines the girls’ many poses into one image. Stagg delights in the in the happy accidents of film- pointing out the skulls and faces hidden in some of her images.
“I don’t have a favorite photograph” says Stagg. “They’re all my favorites.”
“Melting Flesh,” Photographs by Ellen Stagg runs May 22 through June 19, 2010, at Fuse Gallery, 93 2nd Ave (between 5th & 6th Sts, 2nd Ave stop on the F), NYC, NY. The opening reception, on Saturday May 22nd, from 7 to 10 pm, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Fuse Gallery at 212.777.7988 or fusegall@fusegallerynyc.com.
Words by by Molly Crabapple, photos courtesy of Ellen Stagg
I love this article, Molly.
Ellen is so talented! It’s great to see her work with Holga cameras. I need to hit this show.
[...] Join us on Thursday, February 17th to chat and view a slide show of erotic images with noted photographer Ellen Stagg. Ellen will discuss how she got started in erotic photography, her aesthetic and approach to her unique style of photography and the special connection she has with her models that enables her to produce images that have a tenderness and insight rare in the adult. These are hot naked girls- but also girls who laug… [...]