What does it mean to
come of age? At what point is the exact moment in a girl's life when she crosses the threshold from childhood to maturity? Rania Matar has openly observed and questioned this cycle of becoming throughout the development of her artistic practise. Focusing mostly on young women, she studies the ways they communicate their notions of adulthood: from documenting adolescents in their bedrooms and considering how they curate these private spaces; to portraying the unspoken bonds between mothers and daughters; to her keen observations of young girls and how, in all these stage of life these women fiercely express their individuality as they continue to grow and change.
East Wing is delighted to present this solo exhibition of Rania Matar's work
"Becoming: Girls, Women and Coming of Age". The exhibition seeks to raise the question,
'Do we ever stop 'coming of age'?" On our path from childhood to adolescence, into motherhood and as we reach our full maturity, do we ever stop evolving, growing and developing?
The main focus of this exhibition centres around Rania's most recent body of work,
'L'Enfant Femme' in which her subjects are young women and girls teetering on the fine line between childhood and adolescence. She observes how these girls mimic certain body language and postures which, for them, exhibit their conceptions about adulthood. Additionally, the exhibition also presents selections from her past works,
"A Girl and her Room", Invisible Children" and
"Unspoken Conversations". Each body of work explores a different chapter of maturity and illustrates Matar's interest in the universality of how women of all ages navigate different transitional moments in life.
Rania will be present for the opening of the exhibition on Thursday 10th of December at 19:00 and will also give a gallery talk and book signing on Saturday the 12 of December at 14:00.Born and raised in Lebanon, Rania Matar moved to the United States in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut and at Cornell University in the US, she studied photography at the New England School of Photography and Maine Photographic Workshops. She has taught photographic workshops for teenage girls in Lebanon’s refugee camps since 2009 and presently teaches Personal Documentary photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
A special introduction on the exhibition by Rania can be seen on our YouTube Channel here.For more information on Rania's work please visit her website at
www.raniamatar.com
