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Where:
The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike (call 523-4176 for hours)

When:
Through Oct. 31

Two photographers explore the lives of teenage girls

by Heather Joyner

Ah, to be sweet 16 once more. Then again, some of us might prefer a few years in the state penitentiary to revisiting the angst of female adolescence...often a period of uncertainty and frustration too painful to remember all that well. It's a phase well-captured in large color images by photographer Rebecca Finley. Those images, alongside photographic prints by Stan McCleave (many of dancers in the same age range), are on view at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church gallery through the end of this month.

In keeping with their size, Finley's 15 portraits of teenage girls are unflinchingly direct. Like comparable subjects found in the work of photographer Mary Ellen Mark, Finley's young women present themselves warts-and-all, whether they realize it or not. What's particularly interesting is the universality of youth and desire to conform the photographer manages to convey. While recognizing the East Tennessee environment in which some individuals are posed, we as viewers acknowledge that growing up in San Francisco could produce similar attitudes and challenges.

The San Francisco portraits (chromogenic prints larger than the lightjet prints showing local subjects) are not quite as familiar or as recent as others displayed, but a connective thread runs throughout Finley's work. The racially-mixed couple seen in "Cole Street" buzzes with a California hipness, yet the Knoxville teens in "Prom Date"—one of two photographs with that title—seem equally intent on appearing "cool." Both images reflect a teenage pairing impulse, although the urban couple projects an overt sexuality missing from "Prom Date."

As young as they are, the girl and boy on Cole Street are intertwined as lovers—his arms wrapped around her waist from behind, her sensuous lips relaxed. Despite her tiara and glittery halter dress, the girl with a tough, Lisa Marie Presley mouth in "Prom Date" is less attached to her partner, less confident. Her dumpy date probably looks as good as he ever will. "San Francisco Center," Finley's third portrait of a couple, features another mixed-race pair. Like "Cole Street," it radiates sexuality. All in all, Finley's ability to get in close and photograph the urban couples without threatening the intimacy they share is pretty remarkable.

Unlike the images above, "Haight Street," "Crystal," and "Virgin Mega-Store" are more about alienation and/or loneliness than they are about togetherness. With her mannish stance and studded jewelry, the Knoxville redhead in "Crystal" looks braced to fight. However, Finley's perspective—with the camera pointed slightly downward—suggests vulnerability. The young woman leaning against a lamppost and smoking on Haight Street appears lost in thought, if not in a purple hippie haze. The photographer says, "There are, of course, those [girls] who never quite fit in. They are perhaps the most interesting....the camera represents glamour and a chance to be singled out. At this age, most girls are longing for a certain amount of approval, acceptance, and attention."

"Virgin Mega-Store," the most prominently placed print in the exhibition, is the ultimate in misfit portraiture (� la Diane Arbus). In it, an androgynous and lumpy-looking teen stands lopsided, her chipped fingernail polish the only signifier of her gender. Finley remarks, "It was important that these girls be photographed in public places. They are bombarded with advertisements, MTV, magazines....different tribes are formed around certain styles [and the] girls are faced with the decision of which tribe to fit into." In fact, some of Finley's girls are (as the photographer puts it) "walking the fine line between adulthood and adolescence," and they seem dressed for any group that will consider having them. That the virginity in the portrait's title might be a double entendre is no stretch, so to speak.

As for McCleave's "Center of Balance" series depicting dancers from the Appalachian Ballet Company, it is an understandably more palatable collection of images. Comprised of both portraits of individual female dancers (with one male thrown in for good measure) and performance shots, it refers to a milieu in which McCleave has been professionally immersed for the past four years. He says, "After a long day of rehearsals, these dancers often come and pose for me in the studio, still carrying themselves with great strength and grace. Even their simplest gestures are beautiful." Thus we get beautiful photographs.

Whereas McCleave's performance shots are appropriately documentary in nature, his portraits allow more room for self-expression. That self-expression finds form in flawlessly composed, color-saturated prints reflecting the seemingly easy perfection and buoyancy ballet strives to achieve. What's odd about the images is their static quality; with few exceptions, the dancers look like posed dolls. Which makes for a fascinating contrast with the photographs by Finley. McCleave's "Katherine Souder" shows a young woman moving into the frame, and the camera angle in "Hannah Jones" —fixed upon the only older dancer, her arm extended toward us—is somewhat dynamic, but the portraits otherwise assume a frozen, dreamlike quality.

Seen together, the photographs of Finley and McCleave project that much more of themselves. The gritty environments of Finley's individuals become jarring when juxtaposed with McCleave's idealized world of dance. And the inhabitants of that world represent everything the average teenage girl feels she is not: beautiful, graceful, and an important part of a whole. The question might be this: which world is more conducive to young women becoming who they are ultimately meant to be? Taking in displayed images, we cannot help but view their subjects with compassion or wonder or both.