In her latest series Persona Non Grata, photographer Juli Balla took the challenge to shoot portraits and convey personalities, sans faces. Removing the sitter’s features she uses hair styles, accessories and clothing to tell the stories.
Each choice an individual makes on how they present themselves invites another’s judgement to pigeonhole them. I have created personalities by combining certain hairstyles and accessories. You look at these assemblages and they become someone you know or someone you’ve seen.
The body of work investigates how clues to one’s identity are often worn, correct assumptions or not. As Juli states:
Whether we like it or not, we are frequently judged by our outward appearances; the hairstyle we favor, the sunglasses we choose or the clothing style we adopt. In this work I have removed the human element and let the outward accessories speak for themselves.
See more from Juli Balla, www.juliballa.com