Maria Friberg s color photographs and videos are vivid and lush, and at times exceptionally painterly, yet they are also unsettling and coolly provocative. Reversing centuries of what has often been called a male gaze, Friberg s female gaze often captures smartly attired men in unexpectedly solemn, vulnerable, and sensual contexts. Nature, both sublime and ominous, also features prominently in her art. While subverting codes of masculine authority, Friberg s exquisitely composed and staged works function as enthralling visual forces that conflate wonderment and bewilderment, grace and ungainliness, reverence and fear.