Not trapped nor tamed

In conversation with Abbey Lee on being human

We may not know her body under water. As the shells undisguisable in the sands of sea beds, she would hide low, blanketed by her secrets. By all the pictures that have been taken of all the angles of Abbey Lee, we are given but a slivered sense of who she is as woman, human, soul, leaving the rest of her to unravel in her own tide, slowly, just as it should be.

What we can say for sure is that since being scouted as a model at age fifteen, Lee has also traced her own path in the cinematic landscape, an environment that has helped her forge her own artistic evolution. For her, acting is the culmination of all she loves; a unification of body, voice, mind, and spirit. But it’s still not all she is.

‘But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed,’ Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran once wrote. ‘Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.’

This is how one may hope to know Lee, on earth and under water. Transcending portals of her own truth with the unfolded wings that Gibran once spoke of, refusing to, as the poet advised, ‘dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.’ Abiding ever in the mansion of our shared sky, existing wild as the ocean waters that keep her secrets.

KATHRYN CARTER: What’s the worst question you’ve ever been asked?

ABBEY LEE: What’s in your handbag? I’m not sure the response to that is ever all that interesting. Besides, I prefer pockets.

Must say, I have a preference for pockets, too. When you model, your body is draped in the creations of others. When you act, your body and voice channel someone else. What does Abbey Lee have to say about the world?

It’s bonkers. It means nothing and everything and the best thing you can do is find the balance between caring and not giving a fuck. I’m still working on it. I’ve gone too far in both directions before. They both hurt.

You’ve had a wild ride, and amidst it all been named an industry icon. Do you ever find yourself looking in the mirror and wondering what it is about you that is so electric?

Often, I look in the mirror and wonder how I ever made a single penny off my face. But that’s just the voice that won’t allow me to feel self love. The fear that somehow self love is connected to vanity. Where I come from, that’s how self love is made out to look. Also, models and actors leave themselves wide open to harsh critique about their faces and bodies. There’s a lot on the line. So, it’s difficult not to join that panel. I suppose that’s what we call pressure. People who push themselves to do well and put themselves out there to be judged are quite often very hard on themselves. I fit that category.

Your honesty is extremely refreshing, and I think it reflects your integrity, Abbey. Speaking mostly to religious iconography, French sociologist Jean Baudrillard once said that ‘it is dangerous to unmask images, since they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them.’ If I may be so bold: what is behind the images of you?

Secrets. Lots of them. We are in an age where we think we know people better because their lives are being turned into public domain. It’s all smoke and mirrors. People are full of wonderful secrets.

Beautiful. The Italian author Italo Calvino once wrote of people who think ‘that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it never existed, and therefore in order to really live you must photograph as much as you can.’ Calvino goes on to say that to photograph as much as you can, you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else consider photographable every moment of your life. As someone who has spent such a lot of time in front of a camera, do you ever feel yourself (either consciously or subconsciously) living in the most photographable way possible?

Well isn’t that just a judgement on what is worthy of a photograph? Surely, with the right eye, each and every moment of your life is worthy of a picture. Just depends on the eye. I do believe that I try to live as dramatically as possible, maybe that makes for the best photograph.

Very true, it all comes back to perspective. In our increasingly digital world, do you feel we’re at risk of missing the meaning of life with our preoccupation to model it “just so’” for material memories like photographs?

Yeah I think that’s obvious. I think it’s clear that technology is replacing our eyes. I can’t speak for everyone. I can only say that I’m tired of being in extraordinary places and in front of extraordinary people with phones blocking the view. I think because people just visually document entire experiences they are not using their senses fully, and I think the senses are like God’s tentacles.

God’s tentacles, so well-said. French-born American diarist Anaïs Nin once said: ‘Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source.’ How do you replenish the sources of love in your life?

My love is replenished through a mastiff and a maltipoo who both love me every day, regardless of how I feel about myself. I have a lover that keeps trying to find new ways to hold me, a family that is complicated but accessible even on the other side of the world, friends that are all bat shit crazy but have just enough room for my mess as well, a craft that feeds my love for beauty and truth and a world full of natural things that I brush up against.

Divine. And what nourishes you the most, energetically and spiritually?

My work as an artist and the ocean, and they often hold each other. I work and I open myself up to sometimes very painful truths about what it means to be human, and the ocean holds me and tells me [that] God is absolutely in all of it and absolutely everywhere around and inside of me. I’m not religious, per se, but the ocean makes me believe in divine energy.

Your definition of divine energy really resonates, I feel that too. Almost a decade ago, you stated in an interview that: ‘You are so disposable as a model, there is no security in it and you don’t really believe people actually care about you.’ What makes you feel safe in this rapid earth realm?

Knowing that it’s all just some strange dance we are doing, that it’s never going to stay the same. Whatever you feel will change eventually. So I guess I feel safety in impermanence.

Beautiful to be able to surrender in such a way, very inspiring Abbey. You’ve said in the past that you hope there’s a rebellion. That you hope the generation after us throws away their phones and starts writing calligraphy again. What do you want for the future?

I understand as humans we are built to progress at a phenomenal rate. But we are moving so fast away from tactile connection with each other and the natural world and I think that is making us sick. I just want the future to remember that we need some of our wild, natural state maintained.

fin.

You can read more of Kathryn’s poetry here.

This article was first published in issue 30 of LOVE WANT

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAOLA KUDACKI

STYLIST TRACEY NICHOLSON

MODEL ABBEY LEE

HAIR STYLIST TOMI ROPPONGI

LOCATION ALVA STUDIOS