Yielding flesh meets unyielding rock in this series of nudes, artistic photographs presently showing at Valletta Contemporary. They are the work of Stephanie Galea, a professional photographer whose name is closely associated with fine fashion photography. Over recent years her pictures have graced the pages of high-flying publications the likes of GQ, Vogue Arabia, Vogue Italia, and several others. But the pictures on exhibit, collected together under the title of Traces, are not magazine pictures, but neatly framed artworks with a mind of their own.

I am visiting her first ever solo, aptly housed at Valletta Contemporary in lower Valletta. This is unlike anything Galea has ever done before. Although she has participated in several collectives, she admits she never tackled nude photography. However now, here, she dedicates a special kind of attention to female bodies. These bodies do not belong to supermodels showing off fashionwear. They are bodies of women who are confidently merely showing off pure, unadulterated skin. The female nudes are graceful yet raw in their undisguised detail of skin, pores, pimples, shaved intimacy and all. Galea has not retouched or photoshopped, so it is all there to see.  

A total of 24 monochrome photographs show how the enveloping skin and the relentless stone come together in a project which the artist believes was subconsciously born during her youth. "These pictures were shot on a rocky beach I know well, where I used to swim regularly during my childhood and teenage summers. It is the first public place where, as a young woman, I undressed to reveal a bathing costume and little more. As all women do, I had to come to terms with my own acceptance of how my body looked.

Eventually, as the photographer of many a super model, she became aware of the way models can be completely oblivious of any form of self- consciousness when baring it all in front of a camera. Irrespective of who is taking the pictures, irrespective of who is present at the shoot. "The total inhibition of these women impressed me. I realised I had never ever photographed nudes. The female body, which is often a topic of taboo even and especially among women themselves, requires an element of honest exploration. Not of the predatory kind but from a very feminine perspective."

The pictures are not all black, white and shades of grey. Galea has incorporated an element of unexpected playfulness by using three distinct primary colours to (brush)stroke the images, much as one would be tempted to stroke bare skin. The blue series is about exploration, the red series is about sensuality, the yellow series is about liberation so that each series reflects a special aspect of female nudism. The exhibition is a celebration of the female form through and through, with its curves, and flaws, its intrigue and mystery. The voyeurism often associated with female nudity is somehow eliminated.

"I feel this is a very exciting time for women to live in. There is the opportunity to abolish the shame of showing one's body, albeit its imperfections. No woman has a perfect body and even if it seems so, she will probably find many faults in it. Yet the female body is beautiful and it's just fine to appreciate it fully."

'Traces' - photographic exhibition by Stephanie Galea, is showing at Valletta Contemporary, 15, 16, 17, East Street, Valletta, until 14 June.