Conversations with Myself

Jo Ann Chaus portrays the psychological states of mind of the women she personifies in her conceptual & physical embodiments. In vintage dresses, she layers the past onto the present, emphasizing connections she carries and a subjective sense of time.

“Conversations with Myself” has been a decade long exploration that began as intimate dialogues between the camera and me, as I embodied various female archetypes and the forces they internalized.

Though a modern woman, I found myself tethered to the dictates of my mother’s generation with outdated social expectations deeply embedded in me as the good wife and selfless mother.  Making photographs was an excavation toward understanding my internal dissonances.   

In the process, I evolved.  The characters I portrayed glowed with an emerging sense of courage and defiance as I stepped out from the shadows of self-imposed anonymity.

Many of the vintage dresses and props had personal significance; I used them to layer the past onto the present, bridging my private history with the collective memory at large.

“Conversations with Myself “has been a coming of age crusade: a declaration of agency, a reckoning with my past and a witness to my metamorphosis.  This work is a tribute to passion, tenacity and  the making of art as fuel for creative resolutions.