CHLÖE LODGE
PART OF THE FURNITURE
From the series: Learning to Listen.
There’s a complexity to being a female creator. It’s often regarded as simply ‘something we do’. Women carry, women nurture, women are always there to assist. To be ready at the door, to switch the light, to tend to the household’s needs.
I wandered down the hallway drawn into the light by the door, wondering what I should capture. I found a large lampshade (our home was rented and filled with unfamiliar things). I wasn’t feeling brave, I wasn’t feeling like I wanted to be seen. I put the lampshade on my head. It was a simple yet powerfully intuitive act. It is a true representation of how I work, how I create, how I instinctively listen to the environment around me.
LEFT OUTSIDE
From the series: Learning to Listen.
The light in the hallway felt particularly powerful to me in the house where my marriage ended. It was soft and often spoke to me gently. The day I shot this image my heart was torn. I felt In(visible). At home and in my work. I felt my power had been stripped from me, that I wasn’t welcome anymore. I’m grateful I don’t feel like this anymore and I’m grateful I captured this work. The woman in this frame represents so many women in pain and my most ardent desire is for them to know that I see them, I feel their work and I honour their existence.
There is an irony to the images presented here They were created as part of a Self-Portrait Series in 2021 entitled ‘Learning to Listen’. Every week Zoê Wittering in France and I created a self-portrait. We didn’t overthink it. We created in those small cracks of time found in mother- hood and work. We created from the gut, listening to our intuition. It wasn’t until the end of that year that I was able to look back and really understand the power of what we created in that time.
ARTIST FOLIO AND BIO
ABOUT CHLÖE
“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes” Agnes Vard
Layers on layers; Chlöe's work goes beyond the subject/s she is capturing. She infuses essence, experience and emotion into every frame. Whatever she shoots, wherever she may be she brings her whole self to her work from capturing her family, her landscape or creating keepsakes and imagery for others.
Chlöe embraces the journey and does not seek a destination, always adventuring and exploring with medium and story. An expert in her field, Chlöe has many titles to her name: author, storyteller, light seeker, award winner, curator, global citizen and a master in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. However, these don’t define her essence, Chlöe is a creative warrior, artist’s advocate and has a true gift of harnessing light, understanding colour and composing a story.
Chlöe is proudly supported by Nikon NZ and has completed two successful Nikon Global campaigns, in 2023 & 2024. She has worked as a professional photographer across Europe, South-East Asia, the Middle East and now extensively across the South Island of New Zealand where she has lived for the past four years. Chlöe travels far and wide undertaking client work and speaking engagements.