Alejandra Guerrero

"I like depicting sexy, strong women - the spirit of a dominatrix. Through my work I explore the part of my personality that enjoys teasing and provocation. In doing this, I've seen the change and growth of myself as a person, a woman, a lover, a critical open-minded thinker and, most important, as an artist."
Alejandra Guerrero.

In the second decade of the twenty-first century we are witnessing an unprecedented exploration of female sexual power, while on the other hand reactionary cultural forces contrive to keep women as defenceless as possible. In this context, the work of photographer Alejandra Guerrero can be understood as a clarion call. Hers is a rarefied visual art that marks a turning point for female sexuality in erotica, her eloquent tableaux revealing the intricate ways in which women exert their erotic power. Here we see a future in which women dictate raw, yet refined desires. Each moment comes from the erotic fever dreams of the participants and the desires of the woman behind the camera. Sometimes, when Guerrero turns the lens upon herself, those moments are one and the same.

About the Author

Alejandra Guerrero was born in 1979 in Bogota, Colombia, where she attended a British school. Her artistic inclinations were manifested early on, first drawing and painting, and making clothes for her dolls, then in her final year of school in life classes. She enrolled in an industrial design/fine arts course at Los Andes University in Colombia, then in 1999 took a break and went to Chicago, where she took a job in a photo lab. Recognising that she had found her path, she transferred to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to study photography. Her erotic work began in 2003, when as part of a Chicago artist's organisation called Fluxcore, two of her photographs were included in a show about sex and technology called Turn On. She currently lives and works between Chicago and Detroit. Alejandra Guerrero was one of 50 international photographers featured in The New Erotic Photography 2, edited by Dian Hanson (Taschen, 2012).

20 colour, 70 b/w images