© Isabel Dietz Hartmann
As long as she can remember, Isabel Dietz Hartmann has been drawn to the rift between external appearance and what lies beneath. For the Seattle and NYC-based photographer, these various forms of self-portrayal and awareness, whether it’s something as externally loaded as an item of clothing or tattoo, or the subtle way one might hold their hands when they are aware that people are looking at them, can act as barriers to understanding ones self and connecting with others. For the past few years, she’s been making A Prison and A Nook, a series of elegant, yet self-aware black and white photographs that attempt to understand this tension in its archetypes.