Petra Collins 1992-

By Aliza Wall

Petra Collins, Untitled (from Miért Vagy Te, Ha Lehetsz én Is), 2019, chromogenic print, 22 x 28.5 cm, http://www.petracollins.com/baron/.

Born December 21, 1992, Canadian artist, photographer, curator, model and director Petra Collins is a modern-day renaissance woman. Collins grew up in Toronto, her childhood marked largely by dysfunction and illness. Her mother, a young Hungarian refugee, suffered from bipolar disorder and her father, who ran a pantyhose shop, was plagued by financial problems. Collins herself was severely dyslexic and suffered from body dysmorphia, later developing an eating disorder. She took refuge in ballet (which she gave up at fourteen due to a knee injury) and photography, which she initially disliked. Her opinion on photography was changed by the work of Ryan McGinley, a contemporary American photographer known for his irreverent and hedonistic portrayals of youth. Collins began to take photographs of her little sister and her friends on a thirty-five-millimetre camera, which she published on Tumblr and in Rookie, an online publication for teenage girls. In 2010, Collins founded the art collective, the Ardorous, a platform for female artists to display their work. She then attended the Ontario College of Art and Design, where she studied criticism and curatorial practice, later dropping out for financial reasons.

In 2013, Collins moved to New York to pursue an artistic career. That same year, she became one of Ryan McGinley's muses and his photographic protege. In 2014, Collin’s first solo exhibition, Discharge (which included photos from 2008 to 2014) was hosted at the Capricious 88 Gallery in New York. The exhibition continued Collin’s interest in foregrounding a more “authentic” portrayal of girl/womanhood as opposed to those privileged by the mainstream media. The exhibition featured Collins’ early photographs of high school girls struggling to express angst and sexuality in the suburbs. These images are emblematic of Collins’ early practice: feminine and dreamlike, but somewhat eerie. In 2015, Collins published Babe, a volume comprised of works by artists in her online collective. The book explores female identity and its intersection with the Internet and social media, a topic that continues to interest Collins. 

In 2019, Collins published her second major project, Miért vagy te, ha lehetsz én is? (Why be you, when you can be me?), an edition of the cult erotic magazine series Baron which, unlike her earlier work, focuses on the artist herself. However, Collins disrupts the conception of a stable and integrated self, herself, her sister, and other family members wearing a cast of Collin’s face (created by artist Sarah Sitkin) over their own. In the artist’s own words, the project both returns her to places she “needed to go back to” (like her hometown, Toronto) and interrogates the erosion of “reality” in a society obsessed with social media and consumerism. She also references her struggles with body dysmorphia, literalising the disconnect she felt from her own body. The images, especially those utilizing Collins’ face mask, seamlessly blend the mundane, the horrific, and the sensual. Collins’ work continues to utilize prosthetics and embrace the convergence of beauty and strangeness.

Although Collins has not yet produced a large artistic output, she has been incredibly successful in the commercial world. She has photographed and directed editorial campaigns for iconic magazines like Vogue, i-D Magazine, Wonderland Magazine, and Dazed Magazine. Even though these images are fundamentally commercial, Collins is often able to apply her unique aesthetic: she is not a mere photographer for hire. Collins has also directed music videos for Cardi B, Selena Gomez, Lil Yachty, and Carly Rae Jepsen. Collins continues to work today, forging a space in the modern photographic canon for young women, their aesthetics, and their perspectives. 

Bibliography

Fedorova, Anastasiia. “Sex and the Suburbs.” Dazed Digital. November 13, 2013. https://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/17855/1/sex-and-the-suburbs. 

Hernanz, Clara. “Petra Collins disfigures her body in a new series of self-portraits.” Dazed Digital. August 2, 2019. https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/45480/1/petra-collins-disfigures-her-body-in-a-new-series-of-self-portraits. 

Widdicombe, Lizzie. “The Female Gaze of Petra Collins.” The New Yorker. October 6, 2016. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-female-gaze-of-petra-collins#. 

White, Ryan. “The Exorcism of Petra Collins.” i-D Magazine Online. June 25, 2019. https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/8xz7xv/petra-collins-baron-interview.