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Alix Smith’s conceptual based portraits explore how societal and psychological influences shape identity. The meaning in her work lies in the slippage between intention and reception. In examining the limitations of the photographic medium, Smith explores the process of identification and how people perceive their own identity. Like actors, these subjects act out their own characters. Each of her series focuses on a different aspect of identity. Smith believes the identity one chooses to present to the world is altered depending on one’s current desire or passion.

TIMEOUT NY
“States of Union”
By Beth Greenfield

Photographer Alix Smith grew up in a real-life Gossip Girl scene—Upper East Side, private school, old money, the works—only she knew, early on, that she didn’t quite fit the mold. “I grew up in a world where certain things were taken for granted, like you were going to get married and have kids, and that was the life plan,” she says. “And although it took me a while to come out completely, I always knew something didn’t fit correctly.”
Smith, 31, came to terms with being a lesbian while studying for her M.F.A. in photography at the School of Visual Arts. “I started doing a project called ‘Constructed Identities,’ about how you join a social group and give up your personal identity for the collective and become like an actor on a stage playing a part. But,” she says, laughing, “I think that was more to do with how I felt than anything!”
She soon came out to her friends and family, and was met with much more acceptance than she had ever imagined.
“I had a lot of misconceptions about how people would treat me and about how I would be an outsider,” the photographer says. “But I actually got married to my partner on August 1, and my whole family was there, and all the friends I grew up with were there, and everyone was very supportive.”
Soon a self-portrait of Smith and her wife may be among the 20 (and counting) portraits of her latest work-in-progress, “States of Union,” which turns the lens on long-term gay and lesbian couples, shot in their natural habitats and posed to reflect the spirit of various classic paintings. The images will be on view in an exhibit opening this week at Chelsea’s Morgan Lehman Gallery.
“I think it’s important to give people role models to show that we’re not different; we’re not other,” Smith says.

Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/gay/78300/alix-smith-at-morgan-lehman-gallery-states-of-union#ixzz0Qo059BQd

NEW YORK TIMES
"Dressed for Dinner"
By BONNIE YOCHELSON

ALIX SMITH, 30, was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan within a cloistered community of privilege. One of four children, she lived on Park Avenue, spent summers in the Hamptons and attended Convent of the Sacred Heart until 11th grade, when she transferred to the Dwight School.

As Ms. Smith grew older, she increasingly felt like an actor playing a part, and it was in other New York neighborhoods that she eventually found both herself and a career as an artist. The distance she had traveled became clear one day in 2003 when she realized she could not meet her family uptown for dinner at a private club without first going home and changing into proper dress.

The incident inspired “Constructed Identities,” a series of portraits of Ms. Smith’s friends and acquaintances, now in their 20s. She asked to photograph them in their living rooms, dressed as they would be dressed to go to work or out for dinner.
As Ms. Smith intended, her sitters’ good posture and guarded expressions convey the trappings of class and breeding. The modulated lighting and elegant surroundings recall traditional painted portraits, which aim to convey status, wealth and profession.

Ms. Smith says her portraits reveal the triumph of custom over self-expression. “The subjects,” she says, “function like objects in a still life, in a beautifully designed interior, in order to represent the idea of social conformity.”

Perhaps Ms. Smith’s portraits reveal more than she or her subjects expect. Each one can be read as a struggle between an individual temperament and the expectations of tradition. We can see this clearly in the one portrait identified for us, Ms. Smith’s self-portrait, bottom right.

Bonnie Yochelson is the author, with Daniel Czitrom, of “Rediscovering
Jacob Riis: The Reformer, His Journalism and His Photographs.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/nyregion/thecity/06prep.html

Through Imitation 3

2005
C-Print
76.2 cm x 61 cm

Constructed Identities 1

2003
C-Print
94 cm x 76.2 cm

Constructed Identities 12

2003
C-Print
71.1 cm x 55.9 cm

Through Imitation 1

2004
C-Print
76.2 cm x 61 cm

Arranged Appearances 1

2004
C-Print
76.2 cm x 63.5 cm

Picnic on the Grass

2008
C-Print
76.2 cm x 101.6 cm

Through Imitation 12

2008
C-Print
76.2 cm x 61 cm

Through Imitation 8

2005
C-Print
76.2 cm x 61 cm

Arranged Appearances 10

2004
C-Print
76.2 cm x 61 cm

States of Union 11

2009
C-Print
76.2 x 101.6