Francesca Woodman by Jess Weiss from Fear of Men

There’s something elusive and unknowable about an artist who killed herself at 22 but managed to make incredibly poignant and enduring works in the few years that she practiced.

Francesca Woodman started photography at boarding school in Massachusetts, spending summers in the Florentine countryside, taking her first self portraits here. She attended Rhode Island School of Design and studied in Rome, moving to New York in 1979 to make a career in photography, but she received many rejections and was never satisfied with her work. In 1981 she jumped out of a window in Manhattan to her death.

During her short career she took 10,000 negatives on medium format, which are printed 8 x 10, dimensions which serve to draw the viewer into the intimate intentions of the work. They are interior photographs, literally in that they are set in darkened, seemingly abandoned rooms, but also very much in their psychological content- for me they have an uncanny, surreal air, as though we’re able to see the darkness that was present in Woodman’s psyche at the time.

They are timeless. The clothing styles and black and white quality of the pictures rejects passing styles and unlocks a metaphorical, symbolic element. Much of her work could be said to confront notions of female sexuality and beauty, as well as self and the psyche. The naked body is shown in an original light in awkward, unnatural poses, sensual, but denying the viewer sexual titillation. There is a soft intimacy in the bodies, juxtapositioned against the harsh, grimy geometric features of the rooms and props.

She puts herself in the frame, allowing herself to be vulnerable, and haunted, as slow shutter speeds erase her ghostly moving form in empty rooms.

I guess the way Woodman has influenced me as a creator is by encouraging me to head further into my own interior world and find richness in that. It’s totally inspiring to see such a clear vision in someone so young and creatively productive. Some beautiful people I met in New York gave me a book of her photographs last summer, I’m not sure if they already knew I was a fan or if it was meant as a recommendation, but it’s a book I keep returning to.

Reference Points is the weekly feature where acts talk about something outside the world of music that influences them as musicians and people.

Jess Weiss fronts Fear of Men. Their debut album Loom is released on 21 April 2014 in the UK and the following day in the US. Pre-order it now.