“Maybe to be a woman is to be hollowed out – or maybe to be a woman is to sing,” writes
F. Bessma Rhea, introducing her series Gutter Duchess.
Through her raw and poetic lens, F. Bessma Rhea presents Gutter Duchess, a deeply personal photographic series that examines the contradictions and complexities of womanhood — fragility and strength, silence and voice, vulnerability and power.
The series follows the artist herself and the significant women in her life — friends, sisters, mothers, confidantes — each portrait resonating with emotional honesty and magnetic presence. Within these images lies a brutal tenderness: a confrontation with identity, legacy, and the turbulent beauty of emerging womanhood.
In her own words, Rhea
“organizes her environment within the frame and listens to when the world tells her she is a woman.” Through this process, she wrestles with questions like
“How do I photograph a homewrecker?” or “What is inherently aggressive about a haircut?” Her curiosity becomes a compass — relentless, intuitive, and unflinching — guiding her through the layered realities of the female experience.
Gutter Duchess unfolds as a punk portrait series of twenty color film images — raw, candid, and deeply felt. From doctor’s appointments to dumpster diving, Rhea captures moments that oscillate between the mundane and the monumental, revealing a women’s world that is impulsive, crude, jovial, contrite, and defiantly resistant to assimilation into any single definition.
As she photographs, the artist acknowledges her own internal struggle —
“a pessimistic, hotheaded, angry little person” — yet, within these frames, she finds herself disarmed by love. The women who inhabit her images become living proof of the untamable female spirit, mirrors of both her rage and her redemption.
Messy and unglamorous, this work refuses perfection. It favors emotional truth over aesthetic polish, layering humor, defiance, and tenderness in equal measure. Gutter Duchess is a visceral exploration of what it means to exist as a woman in constant negotiation with oneself and the world.
Ultimately, Rhea’s series stands as a visual manifesto of becoming, belonging, and endurance — a raw hymn to matriarchal love, resilience, and the wild, beautiful impossibility of defining womanhood itself.
Guarding My Galentines © F. Bessma Rhea
Bridesmaids © F. Bessma Rhea
F. Bessma Rhea is a San Diego–based photographer whose work explores the world through a keen, investigative lens. A 2025 graduate of Montana State University with a BFA in Integrated Lens-Based Media, Bessma has experimented with silver gelatin prints, digital flash, alternative processes, and chromogenic printing, cultivating a distinctive visual voice. Describing herself as both detective and scientist, she uses photography to explore identity, place, and perception. When not behind the camera, Bessma enjoys eclectic music and classic literature.
www.fbessmarhea.com
@francesbessma
All About F. Bessma Rhea
Hair Hold © F. Bessma Rhea
