By Ahndraya Parlato
Publisher: MACK
Publication date: January 2026
Print length: 144 pages
Language: English
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Ahndraya Parlato: Time To Kill confronts the passing of time with a fearless and unsettling gaze. Through a combination of photographs and personal letters, Parlato interrogates the societal expectations imposed on women as they age, exposing the tension between beauty, domestic responsibility, and the inevitability of bodily transformation. Her work does not shy away from discomfort; instead, it illuminates it, revealing the layered anxieties and fleeting triumphs of life lived under the weight of cultural prescription.
The photographs range from intimate portraits to expansive landscapes, from sparse, confined interiors to surreal arrangements of objects. Domestic items are juxtaposed with plants and weapons, producing a visual language that is both absurd and arresting. These still lifes serve as metaphors for impermanence, the contradictions of caretaking, and the invisible labor often expected of women. Within this careful framing, Parlato captures a world in which the familiar becomes uncanny, and ordinary spaces transform into sites of reflection, resistance, and revelation.
Embedded alongside these images are letters addressed to an enigmatic recipient, whose identity is never fixed. The letters fold inward and outward simultaneously, oscillating between intimate confession and philosophical inquiry. They navigate questions of self-perception, desire, and societal scrutiny, articulating the tension between who we are and how the world perceives us. In this interplay of image and text, aging is portrayed not simply as decline, but as a process imbued with both vulnerability and liberation.
Building on the visual and conceptual intensity of her previous work, Who is Changed and Who is Dead, Parlato extends her exploration of mortality, selfhood, and the female experience. Time To Kill is a meditation on corporeal and emotional transformation, a psychological mapping of fear, fantasy, and resilience. Through her striking imagery and incisive narrative, Parlato invites viewers to confront the brutal, tender, and often surreal realities of living in a body that ages, while questioning the cultural strictures that attempt to define what it means to grow, endure, and ultimately be seen.