<div><p>In her portraits of adolescents, Vee Speers eternalizes a moment of fragile beauty. She photographs the time before first loss, the time of childhood. She captures this in the bodies and faces. And she creates a world layered upon a world, of characters upon children who are no longer children. She dresses, styles, costumes, and sometimes masks them. And the big girls and proud boys who pass through her hands are projected elsewhere. Into their battles, their modesty, their trouble. Each and every one has a frightening power. Each and every one, in their manner and in their costume, is invincible.</p><BR></div>