Petra Collins

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Explore the life and career of Petra Collins (born December 21, 1992), the Canadian-born visual artist, photographer, director, model, and creative force. Discover her influences, signature style, major projects, and cultural impact.

Introduction

Petra Collins is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist whose distinctive visual sensibility has helped shape contemporary visual culture. Known for her dreamlike, feminine aesthetic and explorations of youth, identity, and the female gaze, she works across photography, film, fashion, editorial, and commercial projects.

Her work—both intimate and surreal—resonates with a generation growing up online, negotiating perception, selfhood, and vulnerability in the digital age.

Early Life and Education

• Petra Collins was born December 21, 1992 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

• She grew up in Toronto and attended Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, where she began experimenting with photography as a teenager (around age 15).

• She enrolled at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) and studied artistic criticism and curatorial practice (for two years).

• Early challenges: During her senior year of high school, she struggled with difficulties at home and skipped school; later she switched to alternative schooling that allowed her to re-engage with creative work.

These formative years cemented her path: blending fine art sensibility, self-documentation, and feminist perspectives.

Artistic Style, Themes & Influences

Visual Aesthetic

Collins is often associated with a dreamy, pastel, soft-focus aesthetic, infused with mood, ambiguity, and emotional tension.

She consciously employs a female gaze approach—reframing representation of girls, women, and adolescence not as subjects under the male gaze but as interior worlds, with ambiguity, power, and subjectivity.

Thematic Concerns

• Adolescence & Coming-of-Age: Much of Collins’s work traces transitions—from girlhood to womanhood, the body’s evolution, vulnerability, and the emotional turbulence of growing up.

• Identity, Selfhood & Internal Life: Her visuals often dwell on introspection, memory, emotional residue, and the tension between public and private selves.

• Perception & Reality: She questions how images shape identity—especially in a media-saturated, digitally mediated world. Her choice to use film and tactile processes also engages the materiality of images.

• Feminism & the Female Body: Her work often contests conventional beauty norms, censorship, body shame, and the policing of women’s images. In one instance, her Instagram account was removed after posting an image of herself “unwaxed in a bikini”—she responded with a commentary on misogyny and the regulation of female bodies.

Career & Major Projects

Photography & Exhibitions

• Collins’s first solo exhibition, “Discharge” (2014), comprised personal work made from ages 15 to 21, documenting early experiments and emotional archives.

• She was the resident photographer for Rookie magazine (the youth/media project founded by Tavi Gevinson).

• She curated The Ardorous, a female-led art collective and platform for young women creators, aiming to reframe narratives and aesthetics around youth and femininity.

• Her photographic work has appeared in editorial, fashion, and fine art contexts, bridging the boundary between commercial and personal visual culture.

Directing & Moving Image

• Collins has directed music videos and short films. Artists she has collaborated with include Carly Rae Jepsen, Lil Yachty, Selena Gomez, Cardi B, and Olivia Rodrigo.

  • Notably, she directed the music video for Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U”, which as of mid-2025 had amassed hundreds of millions of views.

• She also directed documentary and short film projects, such as Making Space (a three-part documentary exploring youth culture, connection, and self-expression).

• Collins is reported to be developing her feature narrative debut (as of her CV) in coming years.

Modeling, Fashion & Acting

• In 2016, Collins became a face of Gucci, and participated in a fall campaign. Around the same time, she walked a Gucci fashion show.

• She has had acting roles: for example, she appeared in Amazon’s Transparent.

• Her fashion sensibility also extended into design: she launched a clothing line called “I’m Sorry” in collaboration with the retailer Ssense, merging her artistic aesthetics into wearable form.

Publishing

• She published Discharge (the photographic collection from her early years) in book form.

• Her second book, Babe, is a photography and art anthology featuring works by 30 international women artists, curated by her.

• Collab with Alexa Demie: Together they released a project called Fairy Tales, an erotic photography book reimagining childhood stories through a mature, visionary lens.

Recognition & Influence

• Collins has often been described as an “it girl” of the art/photographic scene, endorsed by publications like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.

• She has been included in lists such as Vogue’s 40 Creatives to Watch and Dazed 100.

• Her visual style—especially around youth, femininity, and dreamlike aesthetics—has influenced a generation of photographers, fashion editorials, music video directors, and social media visual culture.

Notable Quotes & Expressions

While Collins is more visual than verbal, some statements and reflections capture her ethos:

• On her motivation: “Shooting since the age of 15 … her work is fueled by self-discovery and a contemporary femininity which explore the complex intersection of life as a young woman online and off.”

• Regarding her early injury and transition from dance to art: After a knee injury at 15 threatened her path in dance, she turned to writing and photography as her outlet.

• On image and censorship: When her Instagram was removed for posting an unwaxed bikini photo, she penned reflections on how women’s bodies are policed and how images carry power beyond their surface.

These remarks hint at her awareness of how images sit between exposure, vulnerability, and power.

Lessons from Petra Collins’s Journey

1. Transform adversity into voice: Physical setbacks (e.g. her knee injury) became a pivot to creative expression.

2. Trust intuition and aesthetics: Her style grew distinct because she remained true to what she found emotionally resonant, rather than chasing trends.

3. Multidisciplinary practice enriches identity: By bridging photography, film, modeling, publishing, and design, she builds a holistic creative presence.

4. Curate spaces, not just images: Through projects like The Ardorous, she fosters platforms for voices, not just self-expression.

5. Engage critically with representation: Her work constantly interrogates gaze, beauty norms, body politics, and youth — showing that aesthetics can be activism.

Conclusion

Petra Collins stands as one of her generation’s most compelling visual storytellers: delicate yet provocative, introspective yet outward-looking. Through film, photography, editorial, and design, she invites us into emotional landscapes and reconsiders how we see and represent youth, femininity, and vulnerability. As she continues to expand into narrative work and larger-scale projects, her influence is likely to grow—reshaping how images and identity intertwine in contemporary culture.