During the process of producing the series BOYS, the artist experienced several situations where models had different expectations or ideas about the intention to the project and later prohibited her from publishing their photos. In the necessity of making them available to her audience, earthenware became a tool for the artist to conceptualise the revoked pictures. The photos have been removed, but these ceramic objects act as their substitute, opening up a whole new experience in transposing the intention of her photo series.

Ceramic Sculptures

What does it mean when a female photographs a male when he is nude? This is a question that Ecuadorean
photographer, Daniela Torres, has been exploring since 2015.
Without a doubt, the answer is complex and inextricably entwined within the history of visual representation in which the female naked form has been predominately portrayed from a male perspective often depicted as the desired object or the idealised embodiment of the essence of nature in nature.
Rather than objectifying, Torres attempts to bridge a real, but more importantly, a psychological space, between herself and her male subjects. In so doing, these intimate portraits convey a respectful union of human souls despite the gender difference. The portraits are warm and inclusive, with an almost soft and dreamy aesthetic texture, under the decision to use the analogue process. Photographed in exterior spaces inside the landscape of sea and trees, and interior spaces, where nature is signified in the form of wallpaper, duvet covers and cut flowers. Her sitters are photographed instinctively, with a sensitive eye, in which the men willfully succumb to a cathartic experience, exposing a strength of vulnerability; far removed from more obvious representations of impervious masculinity.
These textured portraits manifest a sense of collaboration in semi-performative situations and combine a determined formality in casual and spontaneous moments.
Photography can be seen to be part of an impulse to make a connection with life. A portrait is not simply a visual description of someone, but also contains a dialogue between the photographer and the sitter. To be successful this conversation needs to imply something hidden, unseen and contains a mystery. Like any relationship, there is always a distance and the attempt to close that distance is the space of this unseen dialogue. Even though Torres occupies a real space in the distance between, what we see is not the whole story, yet instead reveals to the audience, an imaginary secret; and like a moth, to a flame, we are seduced into the stories she tells. 

BOYS

Remember that feeling when you’ve got a camera in your hands and you accidentally push the button and take a random picture? Normally you deleted it and didn’t even stop to look at it, because its that random and maybe looks like nothing. Next time just stop and take a closer look at all the textures and forms of this randomness, and you may find you notice something else. Hidden beauty and meaning. Just the fact of a simple accident and its consequences can bring us to a different perception of photography, and allow us to create fruitful outcomes from our mistakes.
This recollection of all the accidents in analog photography invites the viewer to look much further into each picture. Further and further until the point where you really feel the textures, and start to look for concepts or meanings. However, you will never be able to fully understand the photographs themselves, as there was no human thought put into their creation.

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