noëlle grosso : : the mute siren series


This is a series of photographs in which my intentions is for the observer to experience a subtle form of voyeurism, experiencing a single moment in the middle of a series of events.

The title of the series, The Mute Sirens is used to explain the men and women portrayed in my photographs. A siren is a beautiful and seductive women. She is sometimes a nymph, who will sing a man to his destruction, a damsel preying on a man's virility to rescue her from danger or a femme fatale who will bring a catastrophe of consequences. A siren is also a blasting sound of warning that will startle you. The mute is the undercurrent of emotion that is the silence of the sirens: the man. He will try to love, soothe and protect her or he will capture, control and violate her.

It is the interactions between men and women: the experiences between them causing the different emotions to collide, whether from the past or the immediate present. These relationships can be complicated and can cause great pleasure and devasting despair. This starts at the moment of conception until the end of one's life. We all carry our secrets and feelings, hiding them from others, even from the closest around us in fear of judgement and loss. We control our love, lust, hatred and fantasies to protect our personas, but in our hiding we can find ourselves in dangerous and sometimes violent situations. We need to look more closely to notice the emotion just under the surface, because all is not as it seems.