I’ve never been much for academic detachment when it comes to . . . anything. Maybe that’s why Paula Rae Gibson’s work grabs me. Her photographs bear traces of unrepentant attachment: scratches, scrapes, stains, abrasions, frictions, erosions, wear and tear. It’s as if the photographer were trying to get back in, knowing it’s only a photograph, but resolved, nevertheless, on the impossible.
And why not? “Impossible” seems as good a synonym as any for “love,” and there’s a love song at the heart of this series. Gibson, a jazz singer as well as a photographer, pairs her images with lyrics from her own music. Naturally, we might experience these images as a soundtrack to one person’s love life. But there’s something else here too. I hear it in phrases like “woman I want to be, woman I’ve got to be”—a mantra, a chant, a prayer, a yearning, an incantation . . . a rallying cry.
Paula Rae Gibson
the sound of your voice
penetrates, black
and blue. i
can’t stand i can’t
breath i cant bear to
live without
you, the echo
you
never told
me, you never conveyed
the words
. . . you never made me
feel
safe. how do you think
it makes
me
tables of whispers, elbows
meeting as she
enters, accused of being
too much herself, of not giving
a damn about
any body
else
and not being a part
of their factory
of fear, guy at the end
over by the drink,
blew her mind . . .
she wanted,
she disappeared.
you go
on and on about
power, about tower ing over
the rest, i need
fresh air to caress me
run thru
me, rush thru veins,
woman i
want to be
when i think of him . . . let all
my passion be
spent,
woman i want to be
woman I’ve got
to be when
In this short film, Like I Love, Gibson interviews a group of women in Paris who share their own lyrical insights about love.
Follow Gibson on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
And be sure to check out Gibson’s beautiful monograph, Rae: A Pictorial Love Song, available through Eyemazing Editions!