A significant portion of Ranee Palone Flynn’s work is devoted to chronicling teenagers, depicting them with “a tenderness and frankness.” In the past, she has found her subjects through happenstance encounters or online, and she continues to push that methodology. “They’re still strangers,” she says. “Before, I rarely photographed people twice; now they’re mostly strangers to me, but there are some subjects I revisit.” It is a constant hallmark of Flynn’s work though, that her portraits display a sense of empathy and intimacy that belies the fact that she generally does not know them well. Flynn speaks of the bond that the artist has to forge with her subjects as a form of seduction: “Ultimately, they give me what I want by being themselves, but it’s a process to get the walls to come down on both sides, to meet not as photographer and subject, or adult and youth.”

Thematically, Flynn’s art often touches on issues of masculinity and femininity. She is frequently noted for her pictures of young women. However, for this exhibition, the main gallery will be devoted entirely to her exploration of emerging masculinity. She comments, “Girls today seem more open at first but ultimately are always trying to control and direct how they are viewed. Boys put up this front, but once you get past it, they completely lay out their awkwardness and you see truth.”
Flynn was born in New York and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). She currently resides outside of Boston, and works in Boston and New York.

Ranee Palone Flynn
It’s Alright To Hold You Here With Me

Until June 18
Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art
223 West 21 St, Suite 2G, NY
NY 10011