Leah Schrager is an artist who works between the web and NYC. In her work she photographs, appears in, augments, and markets her own image. She’s interested in the line, movement, biography, and digital life of the female body. In 2010 she founded a new form of therapy as Sarah White, The Naked Therapist. She co-curated the female-positive BodyAnxiety.com exhibition, which is featured in the April 2015 issue of Art Forum. She graduated in 2015 with an MFA in Fine Art from Parsons, The New School. She is currently engaged in a celebrity-as-art-practice project, ONA (2015-2020), as part of which she has an Instagram with over 400k followers, released her EP “Sex Rock,” had a first year retrospective in February at Superchief Gallery (NYC), held an investors presentation at Johannes Vogt Gallery, and recently published an analysis of “Self-Made Supermodels” in Rhizome.
Also, here’s a newer version I’m working on if you prefer it:
While most contemporary female artists ignore or critique the male gaze, NYC-based artist Leah Schrager embraces and explores it. Utilizing an open-minded approach to sexuality that fluidly includes its dynamics in her aesthetic investigations, Schrager has both a visual and a conceptual practice. Her visual work involves digitally painting on photographs of herself that are then printed for gallery display. Her conceptual work involves creating and propagating images of herself online in tandem with various « persona » projects. Both practices seek to examine the possibilities of female action and representation in today’s society. In 2010 she founded a new form of therapy as Sarah White, The Naked Therapist, which proved seminal inspiration for her pro-arousal approach to art. She also co-curated the female-positive BodyAnxiety.com exhibition, which is featured in the April 2015 issue of Art Forum. After graduating in 2015 with an MFA in Fine Art from Parsons, The New School, she launched a celebrity-as-art-practice project called ONA, which will run until 2020. Making ONA a real world celebrity has so far included the creation and growth of her Instagram account, which has over 400k real followers, the release of her EP “Sex Rock” and numerous music videos, a first year retrospective in February 2016 at Superchief Gallery (NYC), an investors presentation at Johannes Vogt Gallery in the summer of 2016, and the recent publication of “Self-Made Supermodels,” an article detailing the phenomenon of the Instagram Model, in Rhizome.