Throughout Our Life in the Shadows, we find isolated female figures wound tautly in feelings of tension and anxiety within domestic spaces and desert environments. Often they are entangled in their environments: faces reflected in toasters, nude figures gesturing mysteriously in bathrooms, bodies laying atop and alongside (and in one instance inside) couches, beds, and chairs, defying the expectation of comfort. In other instances, women travel through desert scenes accompanied by cars, trains and planes. A yearning to escape carries into the domestic world which is depicted as more prison than paradise.

Franco Klein’s deft and innovative imagecraft ultimately ties the entire body of work together. Her cinema-like strategies take form in a tapestry of rich color, dramatic pairings of light and shadow, and play on perspective that provides us with an intimate, sometimes voyeuristic view of the subjects. As viewers, we are more witnesses than participants, observing private moments of tension. In some ways, Franco Klein has opened a private visual diary for all to read. And within it are deep-rooted and poetically narrated conflicts between self and societal expectations.