{"id":2070891,"date":"2026-07-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2070891"},"modified":"2026-07-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T21:00:00","slug":"wonderland-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2070891","title":{"rendered":"Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\tWonderland<\/span>
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\n\t\t\tMILEY BY GRAY<\/span>
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We meet New York artist Gray Sorrenti to chat about her archival imagery of Miley Cyrus, and the girls\u2019 punk-inflected creative synergy.<\/h3>\n
\"Miley<\/figure>\n

When Gray Sorrenti was 19, she received an anonymous text. \u201cI. Need. You. To. Help. Me. Make. Something. Classic.\u201d The message popped up while she was FaceTiming a friend. \u201cI was thinking , \u2018Who is this?\u2019\u201d the now 25-year-old says from New York, where she\u2019s sitting \u201cin a friend\u2019s painting studio that I\u2019ve broken into to just sit in peace.\u201d Years later, the message will be immortalised in her forthcoming photobook set to release in October.<\/p>\n

The mystery sender was Miley Cyrus. \u201cShe somehow got my number,\u201d Gray laughs. \u201cI was so surprised.\u201dIt was 2019, and Gray had already been shooting for a couple of years, slowly building what has since become her unmistakable visual language, latent with an intimacy that makes each subject feel as though their heart is worn on her sleeve \u2013 and vice versa. \u201cIt was still all very fresh for me back then,\u201d she remembers.<\/p>\n

\"Miley<\/figure>\n

Photography was everywhere in her childhood. Really, it was part of the furniture. Her father is fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti; her grandmother, Francesca Sorrenti, is a photographer and stylist; her late uncle, Davide Sorrenti, helped define an entire visual generation; her aunt, Vanina Sorrenti, is also a fashion photographer; and her grandfather, Riccardo Sorrenti, is an artist and painter. She was born into that world, but stepping behind the camera \u2013 and shaping a language all her own \u2013 was an act of agency rather than inevitability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always think it\u2019s such a beautiful thing to be raised amongst what you\u2019re doing, what you\u2019re interested in,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s like the Medici family, or shoemakers, you pass along a craft that one day could disappear. There\u2019s no better person to carry that tradition than someone within the family.\u201d She thinks about Miley the same way. \u201cFrom the moment Miley was born, her mom and dad were probably singing her lullabies. That\u2019s such a beautiful thing. I always say that from the second my mom gave birth to me, I saw a flash, the brushstroke of a paintbrush, different colours. It\u2019s like, you are what you eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Miley<\/figure>\n

\u201cI never picked up the camera intentionally thinking, \u2018I\u2019m a photographer,\u2019\u201d she continues. \u201cIt\u2019s a way that I use my hands. When I was a kid, I was painting. My dad was going to become an oil painter. That\u2019s what he wanted to do because of my grandfather. He\u2019s an incredible oil painter. It\u2019s just being raised amongst this craft and art and flow and all this emotion. We\u2019re all so sensitive, and it\u2019s an outlet. I still paint, I still draw, I dance. I love dancing. All of my work, I put through my dancing. I do it through photography, through film. I\u2019m obsessed with filmmaking. That\u2019s what I want to do. I didn\u2019t start with photography. I just started with an idea of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray says this as though the categories for art itself are too small for the craft she\u2019s trying to describe. That appetite for making, that creative elasticity, pure and unrestrained, is what first brought Miley and Gray together after that text in 2019. The pair tore through Brooklyn, making the artwork and teaser film for the pop star\u2019s seven-track project, \u201cSHE IS COMING\u201d. For its cover, Miley stands with her arms outstretched like a bird, a Never Mind the Bollocks T-shirt stretched across her torso. The sense of freedom in that moment is tangible.<\/p>\n

\"Miley<\/figure>\n

\u201cWe all know Miley. She goes through stages. That\u2019s the cool thing about Miley. She pushes herself and goes through the process. She\u2019s incredibly brave. I think this was a really honest moment for her, where she was stripping everything down and becoming a woman, understanding herself more than she ever had. Even asking me to take her picture was crazy. She was putting trust in my hands and trusting me to take an honest image of her because I don\u2019t know how not to take an honest image. It\u2019s really difficult for me to take an image that I have nothing to do with.\u201d <\/p>\n

That honesty runs through everything Gray touches. Even the shoot day, unburdened by traditional structure, became an exercise in instinct. \u201cIt was such a magical day. We were just going with whatever happened. Miley had such a beautiful energy and attitude about everything. I remember one of the shots was in the subway, and she\u2019d never been on the subway before. It was a simple moment, but extremely invigorating.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Miley<\/figure>\n
\"Miley<\/figure>\n
\"Miley<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI remember we got this sick car and she was skating off the back of it,\u201d she continues. \u201cWe were quite punk about the whole situation, about what it means to make art. There was just a good vibe. After that we stayed in touch and became friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond growing up in families where creativity was less a profession than a way of life, the two share something harder to define. An instinct to leap before asking permission. A fearlessness and an unquenchable fire to push their art forward, bound by a similarly fierce, almost combustible energy that feels both feminine and masculine in equal measure. It\u2019s a kinship rooted in mutual recognition: two women championing one another, each seeing in the other the same relentless drive to create on their own terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that inspires me about her is that she started so young and she\u2019s still so passionate, always going for what she wants. She\u2019s always aiming higher than where she already is, and I really resonate with that because I don\u2019t think any of this should have limits. You should always trust yourself and be able to completely jump forward. I try to do that as much as possible.\u201d Then she pauses. \u201cShe also loves her mom more than life itself. And I love my mom more than life itself.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Miley<\/figure>\n

Really, Gray\u2019s images of any of her subjects \u2013 Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, or Maggie Gyllenhaal\u2013 feel like honest conversations between two people, as if her lens is a window left ajar into the secrecy of their soul.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to take away the disruption of this big mechanical object that\u2019s in between me and the subject,\u201d she shares. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t feel it. That\u2019s the beautiful thing about taking a good image.\u201d For her, it\u2019s merely an act of humanity; passed down through the generations. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like you\u2019re just blinking, and you get the shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

WONDERLAND SUMMER 2026. GUEST EDITED BY MILEY CYRUS. SHOP NOW.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Photography<\/strong>\u00a0Gray Sorrenti<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t31 July 2026\t\t\t<\/div>\n
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Fashion<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\tFaux Real<\/span> <\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonderland MILEY BY GRAY We meet New York artist Gray Sorrenti to chat about her archival imagery of Miley Cyrus, and the girls\u2019 punk-inflected creative synergy. When Gray Sorrenti was 19, she received an anonymous text. \u201cI. Need. You. To. Help. Me. Make. Something. Classic.\u201d The message popped up while she was FaceTiming a friend. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,257],"class_list":["post-2070891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-wonderlandmagazine-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2070891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2070891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2070891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2070891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}