I first came across Durham, NC-based photographer Faith Couch's work a few years ago when one of her images stopped me in a near-endless Instagram scroll. Two arms, one slightly darker than the other, jut into the frame. One rests slightly above the other, both bend at peculiar yet relaxed angles, struck with warm, even sunlight. Framed before a desert horizon, the sun casts them as if they were placed before a studio backdrop. They flatten and deepen the perspective and relationship to space, and create a new way of looking at form as symbolism. As viewers, we have no idea whose bodies or souls they belong to, yet there's a suggestion of love, humility, and tenderness. They are fantastical yet intimate. They feel like science fiction braced with empathy and optimism.

These feelings resonate throughout Couch's work, which she describes as focusing on "the Blackness that exists in the peripheral and informs all things." Her entire practice pushes against degrading historical narratives about Blackness and instead celebrates the significance and influence of Black culture across the globe. It's about self-love, centering, and creating a vast and positive spectrum of Black representation, often with the body as a central form.

In the past year, Couch's work has recently garnered the attention of curators like Antuan Sargent, who included her in his widely acclaimed book and exhibition The New Black Vanguard, is now part of the SeeInBlack collective, and was included in the 2019 exhibition In Conversation: Visual Meditations on Black Masculinity at the African American Museum in Philadelphia for her uniquely powerful vision.

I recently spoke with Couch about her practice, inspirations, and the complexity of representation.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Faith Couch