There’s a certain poetry to seeing someone step out of the frame they were once known for. With PRETTY BOY, Leica, in collaboration with Ultraviolet Gallery, introduces a quieter, more personal side of Josie Borain, one that trades the spotlight for something far more introspective.
Best known for her modelling career in the 1980s and 1990s, where she gained notoriety as South Africa’s first global supermodel, Borain steps into a different role here, showing a body of work made during those same years, but from behind the camera.
For many, her name is closely tied to the fashion industry, with campaigns for Calvin Klein, Versace and Valentino, among others. PRETTY BOY shifts the focus away from that public image. Instead, it offers a quieter record of her experiences moving through cities and spaces while working internationally.
The photographs, taken between 1983 and 1989, sit somewhere between documentation and observation. They capture everyday scenes, moments of stillness and passing encounters that feel largely unconstructed.
The title, PRETTY BOY, points to a dual perspective. It references Borain’s androgynous presence as a model, while also suggesting the anonymity she could occupy as a photographer. That position, both visible and unnoticed, informs much of the work.
A Leica analogue camera runs through the series as a constant. Borain has described carrying it with her throughout this period, photographing instinctively rather than with a defined project in mind. “What better piece of jewellery could a girl ask for than a beautiful Leica around her neck? I wore my camera everywhere... and shot everything I saw,” she says.
That instinctive approach is evident in the images, which feel immediate and unpolished. As head of marketing at Leica South Africa, Carla Bornman notes, “The work reveals a version of Josie the world never saw, intimate, introspective, and unfiltered.”
The exhibition itself emerged from an archive of film that remained largely unseen for decades. The material was revisited by her daughter, Willow Borain, and developed into a curated selection with Dylan Culhane of Ultraviolet Gallery. Around 40 photographs form the final presentation.
In the context of contemporary image-making, where editing and curation often shape how work is received, PRETTY BOY feels comparatively direct. The photographs do not appear to have been made with an audience in mind, and that distance from intention gives them a particular clarity.
Leica’s involvement in the exhibition includes both archival and current pieces, creating a link between the period in which the photographs were taken and the present. The emphasis, however, remains on the images themselves and the circumstances in which they were made.
Now based in Vermaaklikheid in the Western Cape, Borain’s life is far removed from the fashion industry that first defined her public identity. PRETTY BOY does not attempt to revisit that moment directly. Instead, it offers a parallel narrative, one that has existed alongside it, but largely out of view.
“PRETTY BOY” runs at Ultraviolet Gallery, 70 Shortmarket St, Cape Town.
