HK Magazine: Your work has toured all over the world. How have other cultures reacted to your sensual images of children and adolescents?
Deborah Paauwe: Amazingly, feedback has been incredibly positive. However, when I was in a group exhibition at the Bangladesh Biennale in 2004, they chose not to exhibit my work. That’s the only extreme case that I’ve had.
HK: So you are obviously aware of the sexual ambiguity of your work.
DB: I am aware of it. By cropping the compositions so selectively, I’m just as aware of what I’m excluding. I keep it ambiguous, and leave the viewer questioning. I hope my work resonates with them for a long time afterwards.
HK: Why do you create this impression?
DB: My work is distinctly personal. With every body I create, I’m putting myself on display. I like the nature of the images often seen on the covers of novels – the images that kind of have to tell the whole story. Sometimes the less you know, the more powerful it is.
HK: Your images look like scenes from a movie – what films inspire you?
DB: There are many direct cinematic links in my work, not only in a stylistic sense but also in my interest in oblique narratives. When I was living in London, I saw “The Virgin Suicides” and was really taken by the colors, the shots, the lighting. My parents were missionaries, and I felt I could connect with the girls. It brought me back to a time in my childhood.
HK: The girls in your images wear some pretty unusual clothes – why?
DB: Because my parents were missionaries, I spent most of my childhood traveling the world. When I was 15, a lot of my friends were being passed dresses from the 50s and 60s. Not me – my mother never kept those things. I’ve been collecting vintage for about 15 years, and pretend they are my mother’s. At art college in London, I was working for Steinberg and Tolkien, a vintage shop. The owners liked what I was doing, and eventually let me borrow some of the clothes to shoot with. I like this idea of recycling garments and models, and coming up with completed stories and styles.