Stephanie L Grant

Stephanie L Grant is an independent photographer and self-portrait artist currently working with alternative photographic processes including wet plate collodion, large format, and medium format film to explore the internal landscape of trauma recovery. Stephanie’s work explores the relationship between body and mind, parts of self, and using art to make meaning out of suffering. Themes such as identity formation, fractured consciousness, unresolved traumatic grief and loss, and the elusive nature of memory are woven throughout her self-portraits.

Stephanie graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Studio Art, with concentrations in poetry and photography. She subsequently completed a Post-Baccalaureate at Temple University in Psychologyfocused on the intersection between creativity and mood disorders. Stephanie hails from Pennsylvania and currently lives and works in Philadelphia. 

"Don’t Look Back" is an ongoing self-portrait series created using the wet plate collodion photographic process. I combine the wet plate collodion process with modern lighting and photography approaches like double and multiple exposures, and movement to create one-of-a-kind, handmade tintypes and ambrotypes.

The narrative focus of my work is based around overcoming past trauma. These selections from “Don’t Look Back" exemplify my ongoing exploration of the relationship between body and mind, parts of self, and how art can make meaning out of suffering. I explore themes like identity formation, unresolved traumatic grief, loss, innocence and experience, and life as living memory, using my figure as my narrative storytelling device. I explore the ongoing relationship of leading a double life (as trauma victim and survivor) through the use of multiple exposure to create elaborately staged photographs. The images themselves are made without a photographer behind the camera which removes the typical power dynamic between photographer and subject and simultaneously blurs the lines between self and other while creating a sense of intimacy that invites the viewer deep into my psyche. 

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