A photographer whose unique body of work uses nude portraiture to explore traditional ideals of female beauty alongside issues of self-identity and gender empowerment, Reka Nyari produces pictures that, while retaining many of the motifs of traditional erotic photographs subtly subvert them. Nyari introduces elements of personal narrative and fictitious stories into her images to consider broader ideas of feminine identity. The cinematography and eccentric narratives of Roman Polanski and David Lynch influence her work as much as the art of Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Miles Aldridge, and Cindy Sherman. Nyari tells her stories through the use of setting—employing both staged backdrops and props and landscapes as background—as well as through the gestures and gaze of her models. “Ink Stories” works examine the histories of women whose troubled backgrounds are reflected in the elaborate tattoos which cover their bodies, literally writing their life stories on their skin.