PROPULSION
Forthcoming from Skira, 2027. PROPULSION brings together Elizabeth Waterman’s photographs of dancers and jellyfish in a series of diptychs exploring movement, perception, performance, beauty, and physical intelligence. Foreword by Shepard Fairey.
ABOUT THE BOOK
PROPULSION began with an accidental visual recognition. After more than a decade photographing dancers and performers, Waterman began photographing jellyfish at aquariums. While editing the two bodies of work, she discovered an unexpected correspondence: limbs echoed tendrils, torsos answered bells, and bodies moving through air and water appeared to share the same choreography of light and motion.
The diptych became the project’s essential structure. The jellyfish do not function as metaphors for the dancers; instead, they interrupt the assumptions viewers may bring to images of women performing in erotic spaces. Meaning emerges in the space between the photographs, where gesture, athleticism, sensuality, labor, transformation, and perception begin to overlap.
Photographed on 35mm analog film, the series uses slow shutter speeds, ambient light, subtle flash, and saturated color to translate motion into the still image. Beauty operates as an invitation rather than a conclusion: the photographs draw the viewer in, then ask what expectations may have prevented them from seeing.
PROPULSION debuted at Photo London in 2026 with Albumen Gallery. The forthcoming Skira monograph brings the complete body of work together in book form for the first time.
CANDYLAND
Released September 30, 2024. CANDYLAND is a series of portraits centered on female adult entertainers, photographed in color-washed, sunlit Southern California settings. Published by Unicorn Publishing, with a foreword by Stormy Daniels.
Signed copies of CANDYLAND available HERE
ABOUT THE BOOK
“Goddesses of sex and light, fully owning their own bodies and sexuality with innate empowerment.” This is how photographer Elizabeth Waterman describes the female adult entertainers featured in Candyland, a series of colorful and vibrant portraits designed to capture the unique personalities of the subjects. The actresses were very much a part of the creative process, adding their own ideas to create playful images celebrating their individual beauty and charisma. Waterman’s previous book, Moneygame, an acclaimed photographic depiction of the world of strip clubs across the USA, inspired her to invite some of America’s leading porn stars to take part in a project which reflects them through a female lens, shot against vibrant, sunlit Southern Californian settings. “I liked showing them in deliciousness, excess, and fun and glory,” said Waterman. “The porn stars that I photographed were happy to be doing what they were doing, they loved having sex and they were good at it.”
For media inquiries, please contact:
Unicorn Publishing, Simon Perks simon@unicornpublishing.org
MONEYGAME
Released 2021. With the unique perspective and kindred compassion of a young female artist building her own body of work, Waterman celebrates their humanity and commitment to mastering their art in service of larger life goals. She shot the photos from 2016 to 2020 – primarily on 35mm and 120mm film – in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, and New York. Each dancer depicted has given permission to be photographed and published. Published by XYZ Books.
Sold out. Limited copies available from the artist HERE
ABOUT THE BOOK
“For the last four years,” says American fine art photographer Elizabeth Waterman, “I have spent most of my Saturday nights in strip clubs, photographing and building a rapport with the dancers who make their livelihoods there. I’ve captured the girls climbing the pole, giving lap dances in the VIP section, putting on glittery outfits, and counting their dollars at the end of a long night.”
Popular media has long characterized strip clubs as gritty dens of ill repute. The truth is, there are many dimensions and nuances to the culture. By necessity, exotic dancers are highly competitive athletes, and consummate performers. They are also women using the profession as a well-considered strategy to pay off student loans, earn money to raise their children, buy a home, or launch a business.
While statistics about the sex industry are unreliable at best, those regarding strip clubs are a matter of public record. There are more than 4,000 such establishments in the U.S., generating more than six billion dollars annually, and providing living wages for about 58,000 dancers, bartenders, and other employees. Exotic dancers give stage shows for male and female patrons, demonstrating “tricks” on stationary or rotating poles, lap dances, and acts in private rooms. On a good night, a dancer can make $2,000 or more. They find the courage to preserve and maintain their dignity, and in rarified moments, they seem to transcend it all with ethereal, dazzling grace.
Waterman says, “First and foremost, this project would never have gotten off the ground without the trust and generosity of the remarkable women in these images. Thank you.”
