Outside of an academic framework, we rarely discuss artistic lineage in photography – how artists and their approaches are in dialogue through space and time. Yet these intergenerational connections, whether conscious or subconscious, unravel a myriad of ideas about photography, how we see, and how pictures shape our relationship to contemporary life.

I discovered the work of New York-based photographer Hero Bean Stevenson on Instagram and was instantly captivated by her quiet portraits of people and animals set against understated backgrounds. They conjured an obsession with feeling, carefully brought to life through movement and gesture. What’s more, her tender monochromatic pictures felt like a conversation with renowned artist Peter Hujar, a key figure in the cultural scene in downtown Manhattan in the 1970s and 80s admired both for his exquisite work and an uncompromising attitude towards work and life.

Like Hujar, Stevenson crafts highly emotional photographs stripped of any excess or superfluous detail. They both share a quiet refusal to pander to the marketplace, understanding the circumstances in which they do their best work, and a desire to protect their creative autonomy. Also, both photographers share a fascination with beauty and pleasure — an inquiry often deemed frivolous by academia, despite it being fundamental to the human experience.