One year ago, American art photographer Roe Ethridge shot fashion model Missy Rayder for A#9 on Snow Farm in Western Massachusetts. Missy Rayder, a cow, a rooster, and a pig. And a barn and a fox. An unusual combination? Not if you consider his well established style and method – creating precisely defined series of images that manage to capture a sense of calculated random and restlessness. Mixing nudes of Missy with the farm animals and agricultural setting, Roe creates an eerie calm – and Missy’s tribal face paint by Walter Obal offers further mystery and questions to the viewer.
The stunning landscape is a favourite of Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCullough & Lazaro Hernandez and provides many possibilities for unique and candid images, which Roe utilises to full effect. In one striking image Missy melds into the forest in a dark Proenza Schouler coat, holding a mask to her face on craggy rocks with the fox staring from the corner of the frame – the animal becoming a second protagonist in his narrative.
The series is a beautiful balance of art and fashion for the issue, which is dominated by pure art and fashion, distinctly separated. Here, one fades gracefully into an other – a fashion model stripped of clothing, garments hiding amongst trees, and a focus on living animals – creatures who have no concept of materialism, and who certainly don’t wear Proenza Schouler!