#influenced
LAURA BETH REESE
Friday, June 2 - Friday, June 30, 2023
View complete works HERE
Installation view
LAURA BETH REESE, @kaitlynbristowe, 2021
50 x 40 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 3
Additional sizes available, please inquire below
LAURA BETH REESE, @madiprew, 2021
40 x 32 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
Additional sizes available, please inquire below
Installation view
LAURA BETH REESE, @colympios, 2021
30 x 24 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 8
#influenced explores the phenomenon that occurs at the intersection of reality television, celebrity, social media, and consumerism: the influencer. Influencers are otherwise-average people who acquire fame not through talent, but through some other means, like appearing on reality tv shows. Using social media, influencers market themselves and shape their lifestyle brands through their partnerships with a variety of companies who pay them to promote products on their feeds. The amount of money that they make for each advertisement is directly tied to the number of followers that they have on any given social media platform. So, in order to be a successful influencer, they must create compelling public personas and tightly curated aesthetics to maintain their follower count.
LAURA BETH REESE, @francescafarago, 2022
50 x 40 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 3
Additional sizes available, please inquire below
Each image is both a celebration and critique of a reality tv star turned influencer. The still lives are built to reflect an influencers “brand” – the elements include content from their feed, whether it be photographs they’ve posted, products they advertise, or the increasingly common “Instagram apology letter” (usually a response to followers unearthing old racist, sexist, or otherwise problematic content that the influencer posted before they were famous). The bright colors and aesthetically beautiful objects draw the viewer in, only to find that things are not quite what they appear. The people in the pictures are a façade – cardboard cutouts of the influencers – and the objects are smashed and falling apart, pointing to the aspirational but not-so-secretly manufactured lives that influencers perform. The images are visual manifestations of influencer culture, embodying the push and pull that many of us feel between being fully immersed in social media and casting it aside completely. They are a comment on the ways in which people are willing to commodify themselves for attention and fame and ultimately, how companies and brands will always adapt to changing technologies in order to market their products to larger audiences.
LAURA BETH REESE, @therachlindsay, 2020
40 x 32 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
Additional sizes available, please inquire below
LAURA BETH REESE, @ashely_iaconetti, 2022
40 x 32 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
Additional sizes available, please inquire below
Installation view
LAURA BETH REESE, @mattjames919, 2023
40 x 32 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
Additional sizes available, please inquire below
Installation view
LAURA BETH REESE
(American, b 1987)
Laura Beth Reese is an artist and reality television connoisseur. She uses photography as a tool to explore her obsessions; from her ex-boyfriends to her biological mother to social media influencers. Her work has been exhibited nationally, most recently at the Pen + Brush Gallery, the SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. She was a 2016 recipient of the Traveling Fellowship from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and in 2012 was awarded first place in the Museum School’s Yousuf Karsh Prize in Photography. Her work has been published in Boston Art Review, Paper Safe, and online at Cosmopolitan and The Huffington Post, among others.
Reese was born in Iowa and raised on the East Coast of the United States. She holds an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and a BA from Muhlenberg College. She resides in Boston where she has taught at Harvard University, Boston College, and currently works as a Studio Manager and part-time faculty member at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Installation view