"Brianna Capozzi has sent me a list of what fascinates her as an artist. It reads, “New Yorkers, the East coast, the West coast, animations, blondes, things that shine, the colour pink, strong muscles, good hair, visible veins, skin showing, noses, teeth.” She elaborates, “Women and everything that makes up being one: the energy, the demeanour, the style, the way their bodies move, their muscles, their faces, their noses, their hair and their secrets.”
Her new book, Womanizer (published by Rizzoli), is permeated with these obsessions. Bringing together over ten years of glorious portraits and fashion editorials by the inimitable photographer, every page is a testament to the allure of women and the culture and artefacts of womanhood. “This book means so much to me. It’s a compilation of over a decade of my favourite images. The throughline between each image and woman is the charged, humorous energy that makes up a large part of my practice as a photographer,” she explains. “Women are so complex and powerful. We have the ability to do so much and be so grand. In my eyes, women really rule the world in all aspects of life and creativity.”
Capozzi brings an innovative, improvisational spirit to many of her shoots. While they are intricately moodboarded and conceived in advance with her longtime collaborator Haley Wollens, she’s agile – prepared to whip off her own bra to use as an accessory, or nip to goodwill shops and delis for props, taping and sewing bespoke accessories, street casting, breaking into abandoned properties to find the right location, or enlisting her boyfriend, family and neighbours as extras wherever required." — DAZED & CONFUSED
“Not too serious, a bit off, a bit strange,” is how photographer Brianna Capozzi describes David Lynch movies — and, in the same breath, herself. Capozzi credits her playful New Jersey upbringing for the cheeky and “very pop” work (think Chloë Sevigny wearing a lobster) she has compiled in a new volume, Womanizer (Rizzoli, $65). Capozzi combed through images she shot over the past decade for British Vogue, American Vogue, Vogue Italia, Interview, W, AnOther, Dazed, The Face, and Pop, many on location in California, for the volume she calls a “complete pendulum swing in a different direction” from her last work, Sisters, a very intimate look at subjects she cast.As for the book title, Capozzi enjoys the wordplay. “It’s taking back this word womanizer. I think I clearly love shooting powerful women and having these exchanges with them, and we’re doing exactly what we want to do without anyone’s opinions,” she says. Power and play between the photographer and subject can coexist. “I like shooting women and making them look sexy and in charge of their bodies,” she says. “We can be as erotic or playful as we want. It’s a celebration of women, and I felt it was a fitting title.” — C: CALIFORNIA STYLE MAGAZINE
"Today, the New York–based, self-taught photographer and director is gearing up to launch her latest book, Womanizer, out now via Rizzoli. The tome features a foreword by Sevigny and an accompanying exhibition, at New York’s Rectangle Room, opening May 14. The images featured in Womanizer speak to the photographer’s adoration for women, and her affinity for props. The name of the book is a reference to Helmut Newton. “I was telling a friend how Susan Sontag thought he was a womanizer, and then what that means to love his images—he’s one of my top influences,” Capozzi says. “How fun, to turn it on its head as a woman. At the end of the day, what does that word mean?” The new book doesn’t so much answer the question as celebrate Capozzi’s singular vision (a unique marriage of erotic power with the absurd and sometimes mundane), featuring Olivia Rodrigo, Karol G, Pamela Anderson, and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as her mom and grandma." — W MAGAZINE
"Her new book, Womanizer, features her images which unbind female form and honor its wild erotica. Capozzi contributes to a contemporary movement of female-led fashion photography, with much of her own handmade clothing and props as the supporting elements to the woman subject. Within Womanizer, Capozzi examines the female DNA, exaggerating the expressions, fashion, and scenes that women are both wrongly defined by and proudly made up of." — OFFICE MAGAZINE
"Brianna Capozzi’s photography perfectly straddles the line between deeply sexy and deeply strange. An aesthetic passion that finds itself on full display in her new book Womanizer where the artist documents everyone from major superstars, like Jennifer Lopez and Sabrina Carpenter, to her mom and best friends in various states of undress. Images that are at once titillating and confounding, inviting the viewer to linger for a few moments longer." — INTERVIEW MAGAZINE
