Color, movement and sweeping, expertly choreographed gestures permeate the works of Arielle Bobb-Willis. The Los Angeles-based photographer blurs the lines between art and fashion images, rejecting “the idea that black expression is limited – or limiting.”
A compact monograph collects 90 photographs by Bobb-Willis, highlighting her distinctive gaze and bold, conceptual compositions. Published by Opening, Keep the child alive positions observation and imagination as useful tools to inspire awe for those who are overlooked. Models dressed in bright, color-blocked garments pose in parks or alleys, while their cheerful dances and chromatic clothing enrich the nondescript spaces.
Bobb-Willis first picked up a camera at the age of 14 and, during moves from New York to Aiken, South Carolina, to New Orleans, discovered that the medium was both a relief from chronic depression and loss and an essential tool for developing her taste and self-confidence.
“With photography I keep my inner child alive. Photography has taught me to fall in love with life,” she says with Nicole Acheampong an interview in the book, with the addition:
I love finding unexpected rainbows and sunshine and a beautiful green park and kids’ chalk drawings on the sidewalk and melted ice cream and butterflies and flowers and black girls with bright blue braids and sweet graffiti poetry! I keep my inner child alive by taking pictures of me every day. I’m always discovering things that I’m so in love with. …Photography is and remains a daily practice of falling in love with as many things as possible.
Whether captured in a Los Angeles parking lot or against a purple wall in New Jersey, Bobb-Willis’s images are dynamic and vibrant, drawing beauty and exuberance from modest spaces.
Keep the child alive is available on Bookstoreand you can find more from Bobb-Willis at her website And Instagram.
