“For in utter darkness, it is impossible to know in what degree of safety we stand; we are ignorant of the objects that surround us…” Edmund Burke Figure Studies is exactly that, studies in the human form. The practice of figure studies has a long history in the visual arts, particularly drawing, but for Michener it is about blurred, close-up, black-and-white photos with a sensual, dark, sometimes menacing edge. Intertwined human forms, body parts bordering on abstraction, and frozen movement are the stuff of Michener’s raw vision. Born in Boston in 1940, Diana Michener holds a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College in New York and later studied with Lisette Model at New York’s New School. Michener has exhibited internationally, including a retrospective at the Maison Européene de la Photographie in Paris in 2001. Her books with Steidl include the award-winning Dogs, Fires, Me (2005), 3 Poems (2006) and Sweethearts (2010).