Skip to main content

Movers & Shakers: Charise Isis and "The Grace Project"



Calling Kingston home, Charise Isis is an artist who specializes in portrait, boudoir and pin-up photography. Her work challenges our culture's standards of beauty by allowing women of all different ages, body types, ethnicities and in varying transitional phases of life to be able to express courage, strength, sensuality, depth, individual and unique beauty.

Her work has been exhibitied widely both nationally and internationally in solo exhibits and public and private collections at galleries such as the Michael Mazzeo Gallery in New York City; The Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts; The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, the Photographers Network Collection in Seigen, Germany; the Center for Photography at Woodstock; and CPW’s Permanent Print Collection at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (New Paltz).

She is also the genius behind The Grace Project, a photographic exhibition series that aims to reveal the courage, beauty and grace of women who have had mastectomies for breast cancer.

To date, almost 400 women from all over the country have been photographed for the project with a goal of photographing 800 – the approximate number of women newly diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States each day. The portraits are exhibited throughout the U.S. on large-format silk banners and will eventually be put together in one space to show the enormous impact of the disease. The Grace project will later be a published as a book.

In addition, Charise Isis does speaking engagements, addressing breast cancer and body image by revealing some of the powerful stories of transformation that occur as a result of the photographs. 

Drawing inspiration from ancient Hellenistic marble and stone sculptures, Grace women are draped with luscious, vibrant fabric, reminiscent of great works such as Venus de Milo – a statue of whom Charise Isis admired as a child.

An empowering tool for women with breast cancer, their partners and families, The Grace Project brings the general public face-to-face with women who have dealt with breast cancer, increasing both awareness for breast health and acceptance of the post-mastectomy body.  

“There needs to be beauty attached to this because scars don’t make you less beautiful,” she says. “It sort of represents the declaration of life and the beauty of survival.”

For more information, log onto www.the-grace-project.org or their Facebook page. If you would like to be photographed for the project, email the artist.

 Music: http://www.bensound.com

This video feature originally appeared in the March/April 2018 Issue. Music: http://www.bensound.com
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Screen Queen Presents: Love Beats Rhymes

by Dana Muwwakkil Meet Coco (rapper Azaelia Banks), the self-assured wordsmith looking to get a record deal for her music group. A natural leader, she is the only female rapper in her group and her ability to string together words effortlessly is important to her because music – particularly rap – is her life. While Coco considers herself a bit of a master of her craft, her social life is at a standstill as she is hung up on Mahlik, a young man in her group who doesn’t seem to be interested in anything more than their casual hook ups.    Coco is hustling to get a demo together for a potential agent and waiting tables at her mom’s cafe, but her mother hounds her to finish school. Coco concedes to her mother’s wishes and signs up for classes at her local community college. Only a few credits shy of getting her degree, she decides to take what she assumes will be an easy course called Poetry 101.  Immediately Coco and Professor Dixon (Jill Scott) butt heads ove...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Screen Queen Presents: GLOW

by Dana Muwwakkil Step into the ring with the Women from GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) – the 1980s spandex and big hair world that women like actor Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie) land in when quality acting roles are scarce. Dreaming of landing a role that consists of more than telling powerful men that their wives are on line one, Ruth stumbles into GLOW and thinks this gig might be her big break.  The organization is brand new, headed by former B-list director and financed by a rich kid who wants to turn the women into stereotypes. Ruth is a natural front-runner who is passionate about her craft, but struggles to develop a compelling character and find her footing with the physical training. The show is based on the real women from GLOW, which became the very first television show with all female pro wrestlers in 1986. Netflix also has a documentary showing the real trailblazers some of the characters are loosely based on. These women were incredible enough to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Business Spotlight: Hoover Architecture, PLLC

What we do: We are a NYS WBE-certified, full-service architecture firm, specializing in commercial and custom residential design throughout the Mid-Hudson Valley.  How it started: Fifteen years ago, after working for a number of years as an architect in the commercial and industrial sectors, my daughter was born. I decided I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. I had always done small projects aside my full-time job, so the transition wasn’t that hard. Using my contacts of contractors and past clients from my years in the business, I hung out my shingle.  ​ About the clientele: I am a sole proprietor, which allows me to design a huge range of projects, rather than getting stuck in one sector. Overall though, my primary clientele are private business owners and custom home clients, and sometimes they are the same people!   Why it's unique:  A client gets to work soley with me throughout the entire design proc...
Post a Comment
Read more