ARTIST PROFILE: MARGARET LEVYA

I only have one photo of my mom from when she was little. In the photo, she is wearing a yellow and blue bathing suit and holding a flower waterer; she was about 14 years old. Margaret Levya’s photography gives me the same warm, nostalgic feeling as looking at the photograph of my mom. Levya’s photos are angelic, elusive, dreamy. They possess a tenderness that feels newly unburied. Her subjects are people that are dear to her and that intimacy is felt in the attention to detail she pays to each photograph. The colors, the shadows, the textures, the sunniness or the coolness.

I especially admire her family portraits- one of her most recent series. She hangs yellow flowers in the middle of a white backdrop and captures a little bit of the background in them. You can see the brick roof of a house in one, a bit of the sky, a cactus, and a bench in the others. Her decision to not crop these objects out makes the photos more alluring, more realistic.

Family portraits: Margaret, Nathan, their daughter Frances, and their dog

Nathan in a car

Embroidered & painted polaroid of Frances

Shot list

“I didn’t know I’d miss this“ Part 1

A series documenting Margaret’s friends answers to the question :

“What is something you miss that you didn’t expect to miss?“

I miss hugging my friends & non- romantic physical touches. Maria

I miss being able to make dinner with my friends. Ethan

I miss riding the bus & trains a lot

What do I miss? Telling people I can’t go to things

I guess seeing people when I go get coffee

You never knew who you were gonna meet, and I think that’s what it is, like just meeting new people is what I miss most.

I didn’t expect to miss the hustle of downtown. Briana

I miss people watching on the train. Michael

I guess if I had to pick something that I miss, it would be the option to go out if I wanted to

I do miss the spontaneity of people

I miss going out to eat at restaurants, I guess.

I miss looking forward to things

I miss walking to the train. I miss going to the gym.

I miss eye contact the most

There’s things I miss here and there, but, you know, I also think that everything will come around in due time.

I miss touching other people’s dogs

A self-portrait of Margaret wearing Parade