Deanna Templeton

What She Said

18/05/2023

15/07/2023

Gallery FIFTY ONE TOO

Opening on Thursday, May 18th 2023 from 2 – 9 pm

FIFTY ONE TOO is pleased to announce its second solo exhibition by the California based photographer Deanna Templeton (US, 1969). In ‘What She Said’ (a title taken from a song by The Smiths), Templeton pares portraits she made of women in their adolescence on the streets of the US, Europe, Australia and Russia, with gig flyers and Templeton’s own teenage journal entries from the mid to late 80s. This moving, introspective series, in which the artist shares writings by her teenage self that are both melodramatic and deeply disturbing, sheds light on the universal experience of (female) adolescence and the challenges of growing up.

Templeton is mostly known for her portraits of young women and her documentary street pictures depicting the skate and beach life of Southern California. Because of the personal and sensitive approach to her youthful subjects, Templeton manages to reveal a different side of these subcultures, away from the stereotype of virile skate heroes and sexy bikini babes. Her portraits of strangers she met accompanying her husband (former professional skater turned artist Ed Templeton) on skate tours or during the couples’ daily walk on the pier close to their home, often make it into series dealing with identity and body image.

‘What She Said’ is simultaneously on view at the SFMOMA (San Francisco, US) in the group exhibition ‘Kinship: Photography and Connection’ (May 20 – November 12, 2023). An eponymous book was published in 2021 with Mack.

Press release coming soon.

Deanna Templeton

Deanna Templeton is an American documentary photographer based in Southern California. Her first major photographic essay focused on the activities of young skateboarding and surfing fans who would have their idols autograph various body parts and the evolution of these body decorations over the years. The work from this series made up a monograph titled “Scratch my Name on your Arm” published by the Schunck Museum, Netherlands, 2010.

Her second photo essay and monograph “The Swimming Pool” was an 8-year project that focused on underwater nudes published by Um Yeah Arts, 2016. Both have been widely exhibited and collected in the US, Europe and Asia.

She is currently working on new two new projects. One is portraits of young women combined with her own teenage diaries and ephemera, and another is a documentary exploration of the suburban coastal city she lives in.

Her work has been featured in Vogue, Juxtapoz, Wonderland, 10, and Badlands 777 magazines among many others.