Girl to Know: Maya Spangler
Photographer Maya Spangler is a Los Angeles native, but now splits her time between California and New York. Girlhood being her ongoing exploration, she captures the exterior emotions and femininity of her Gen Z generation. You’ve probably pinned, liked and likely attached to your moodboard a few of her bts images shot backstage at a Sandy Liang fashion show. The true devotees of her work have probably followed her engaging photo diary like Tumblr, coldstonedreamery. Much of her client work includes Adidas Originals, Balenciaga, Dazed, Loewe, Nike, Spotify just to name a few big brands.
Spangler’s style of photography is intimate, she uses the lens as a magnifying glass deeply noticing a coming of age moment within her subject. Personally, I always notice her photos to capture a scene in which a girl is becoming a woman through her movements, a frown, or how she takes up space within her surrounding.
*Photos via stolenbesos.com
This past year she debuted a photography book, Stolen Besos (published by Enter Bliss) where girls “exist in languor, caught between who they are and how they’re seen.” The series is more of a visual diary on the longing and exploration of girlhood. The work spans over three years and shot across eight cities, Spangler photographs her female subjects in personal spaces, some perhaps resembling her life growing up in California. Although, nostalgia is not the key message, Spangler instead welcomes transformation. The photographer also notes that the work doesn’t embody girlhood as innocence, but as a myth of being seen as tough, tender and self-mythologizing. An introduction by photographer/filmmaker Richard Kern, who is a befitting artist to touch upon Spangler’s imagery and inspirations.
A few notable faces that are featured in Stolen Besos are Bella Hadid, Jesse Jo Stark, Chloe Cherry (Faye in Euphoria) and Charli xcx. Stolen Besos is available to purchase here.
*photo credit: Maya Spangler / artist’s website
