On display in House of Sweden, September 16, 2023, through February 2024.

The Swedish Artist Julia Peirone’s visual world is dominated by girls and young women. The modern-day visual culture favors self-glorification and is obsessed with abstract ideals of beauty. Through her photography, Peirone explores young, female teenagers’ search for identity in a time when social media heavily influences our understanding of the world around us.

Her photographs capture the frustration that many young women feel with the external ideals and demands that are imposed on them. “To some extent, the girls in my pictures are victims of a gaze, but, at the same time, they are strong and have power over the viewer’s gaze,” says Peirone.

The pictures can hardly be defined as portraits in a conventional sense; rather, they investigate mental states and visual, modern conventions. Although the photographs are carefully staged, Peirone allows the model to move within the setting, capturing in-between moments, be they fragile or confident. She sees her subject and allows them to return their gaze.

About the artist
Julia Peirone was born in 1973 in Argentina and lives and works in Stockholm. Peirone studied at the University of Photography in Gothenburg and at the College of Art, Craft and Design in Stockholm. Her works have been displayed at Moderna Museet Sthlm, Liljevalchs and Brändström Stene in Stockholm, Göteborgs Konstmuseum in Gothenburg , Dorothee Nilsson Gallery in Berlin , and Aperture foundation in New York. She has participated in several group exhibitions and her work is represented at Kiasma, Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki, Museum of modern art in Stockholm, Museum of Art in Gothenburg and in other collections.  

The exhibition is curated by Helene Larsson Pousette and produced by the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC.

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