Christine Meuris

The initial inspiration for Plywood Portraits is my niece. As opposed to the bustle of motherhood and work while raising my own children, in my time with her, I have the privilege of watching her almost from the perspective of an anthropologist. I watch her do simple things, watch her body make interesting shapes and watch her mind make order. My initial portraits tried to capture all three of these things. 

As I made these portraits, I began to consider the power of these kinds of images of all children. In a time when children are marketed to as never before, plugged in to technology at ever-younger ages, separated at borders and are growing up in a world that is only now reconsidering the school to prison pipeline, these kinds of images remind us that kids are still kids and deserve to be seen as kids.