I Miss You Already, 2004
© Tracey Baran

I quite like Tracey Baran’s psychological portraiture.

From Ken Johnson in the New York Times review of her show See Through Me at Leslie Tonkonow - March, 2006:

Because her photographs are intimately autobiographical and sometimes have a snapshot aesthetic, Tracey Baran will be compared to artists like Nan Goldin and Ryan McGinley. But what is more distinctive in her work is its cinematic quality. Her pictures are like stills from an artfully edited movie about her life.

The two-page autobiography in the catalog reads like narration for the film. In a sweet and seemingly innocent voice, Ms. Baran describes growing up in a small, upstate New York town, moving to New York City to go to art school at 18, breaking up with her boyfriend, making a cross-country trip with her best friend and recently finding an apartment of her own at 30. For every topic there is a tender photograph.

Images of Ms. Baran’s mother dressed as an Indian for Halloween and of her father and brother facing each other in profile could have been comical, but are instead quietly loving. A nocturnal view of a smoking demolition derby is dreamily atmospheric and without any cheap mockery. And self-portraits in which Ms. Baran sprawls across the corner of her bed in her underwear or pulls up a fancy white dress to reveal holes in her see-through pantyhose are sexy and playful without veering into the kind of showy squalor that often tempts young photographers. Ms. Baran is not a stylistic innovator; rather, she plays feelingly with photographic clichés the way a conservatory-trained musician like, say, Gillian Welch plays with the clichés of country music.

See more images here.

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