Although the subjects of Italian-born Maïmouna Guerresi’s photographs are often friends or family, the portraits veer far from the familiar. The costumes she designs for them are elaborate and etherial, but are minimalist in color and line.
Guerresi’s subjects appear mystical, infused with references to Sufi Islam, a religion she converted to from Catholicism when she married a Senegalese man. On her work, Guerresi says, “My moods are expressed in my work as faces, color, and emotions, where the body is no longer a prison of the soul, but rather like a temple to house and augment the Divine.” Guerresi currently lives in Dakar, Senegal.
