Paddy's Mother's Wig by Fall 2006 Hot Shot Juliana Beasley

Juliana Beasley
Currently residing in: Jersey City, NJ

Website: http://www.julianabeasley.com/

Work Statement:
The people in these photographs are largely disregarded: the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, alcoholics, or drug addicts. They live in a close- knit community along the boardwalk of the Rockaways. I became accepted with my camera in hand.

I feel compelled to photograph the people I've met in the Rockaways with the same honor and clarity I would bestow upon my own parents. I document an illness we share in common; reflecting upon a chaotic childhood soaked in the misery of alcoholism and two parents dead of a fatal disease. Despite our worldly exteriors, our humanity connects us.

This project confronts various levels of marginalization. There is a geographic marginalization insofar as all of this takes place on a peninsula at the far-flung edge of the city where the fog rolls over the beaches. Secondly, there is the social marginalization, the fact that the subjects are poor, physically or mentally challenged, and otherwise living far outside the mainstream, virtually invisible. Finally, and most importantly perhaps, there is the interior marginalization, a loneliness that I attempted to capture in the portraits, a sense of personal isolation that is often exacerbated by or results in alcoholism or drug addiction.

Bio:
Juliana Beasley was born in Philadelphia, PA, USA, on August 16, 1967. After graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in New York in 1990, she began working as a freelance photographer, covering the city's nightlife for the Village Voice. In 2003, she published Lapdancer (powerHouse Books 2003), an intimate photographic and text account of the world of strip clubs. In 2004, she photographed the rehabilitation of landmine victims in Cambodia. Her newest book project concerns substance abuse and mental illness in a boardwalk community in Queens, New York.

Her work has appeared in many major publications, including American Photo and The New Yorker in the US, and Max in Germany. Her work is represented Contact Press Images and the pH on-line gallery, both in New York. Ms. Beasley has participated in group shows and in 2006, had her first one-woman show in Stockholm at the Kontrast Galleri. Most recently she showed her work at the Camera Club of NYC Competition, juried by Antonin Kratochvil. She will lecture about her book and have a signing at the Camera Club in November 2006.

When not working she is dancing with her dog, Moishe in Jersey City.