In Vanished Women, Jeanne Ménétrier uses blurred black-and-white portraits and domestic interiors to explore how women’s bodies are seen. The photographs here include nudity. Ménétrier describes the work in her own words below.

The series Vanished Women was born from a will to show female bodies and so for feminism in a different way. I always loved blurred pictures even when I didn’t now how to take pictures. So this was the start of my series but I didn’t know what I really wanted in it. I started by taking naked pictures of me.

By that time I was influenced by an english sculptor, Henry Moor who parcel out female body. I liked this idea and I tried to put together two pictures of the same scene but where my body was not in the same place. That way my body was cut in two parts which were in different place of the scene.

Back then I was studying art in faculty and when I shown my tests to my teacher he told me it was all about seduction in that female body. I was so angry that he saw seduction whereas I didn’t even think about it that I some sort of thrown away those first pictures and started again this series from the beginning.

It took me about 6 months to finish it. I went to my models home and each time discovered the place on the day of the photo shoot. I used their interiors to create the postures and their world to welcome my stories.

Two bare feet rise from a dark form above a rumpled bedspread.Save

A blurred arm and hand beside a small round table holding a potted plant.Save

Blurred nude figure curled against a dark background.Save

Blurred nude figure seated beside a round table and a vase of flowers in a dim room.Save

Blurred nude figure lying across a patterned sofa beneath wall hangings.Save

Overhead black-and-white view of a blurred figure beside a patterned rug and wooden floor.Save

Bare legs blurred with motion on a sofa behind a large polka-dot pillow.Save

Blurred pale figure curled against a dark textured floor in a black-and-white photograph.Save

Blurred nude torso in the foreground of a dark room, with a doorway visible behind.Save

Blurred figure moving across an armchair in a room with a coffee table and sofa.Save

Blurred figure passing in front of a dresser with a pale mask in a dark room.Save

Black-and-white photograph of a blurred figure reclining on a patterned sofa, with bare legs raised.Save

Dim black-and-white room with a round table and flowers; a blurred figure is partly visible at left.Save

Blurred nude figure reclining on a patterned sofa beside a low wooden table.Save

Blurred nude figure curled beside a low wooden table and patterned sofa.Save

The gallery is credited to Jeanne Ménétrier.