Artist’s Statement 2000-2003

My work explores art’s role in and responsibilities towards the emancipation of women and most specifically, how photography works to re-enforce or disrupt stereotypes and body ideals.  The traditional female nude (in art and now in the mass media), positioned to appeal passively to the male gaze, has conditioned the way real women are perceived.  The insistence and longevity of the image has overpowered the diversity of character and body type of real women and reduced them to the sum of the image* .

Rarely is the marginalisation of the nude more complete than with the older figure.  Even the most open-minded seem to accept that the slightly drooping breast or wrinkled skin should be kept from the public eye except perhaps as an illustration of the ravages of time seen as the antidote to the frivolous hedonism of youth - potently illustrated by Richard Avedon.  The older figure is studied but never exalted. 

Through my practice I attempt to redress this representational bigotry by creating very individual images celebrating the beauty and character of the specific person irrespective of body type.  I try to create authentic images that show the individual at a specific moment but which also articulately represent the collective, using the sensuousness of being naked to heighten the empathy. The images are not generally sexual or sensual, not because the subjects do not have bodies that are understood in the mass media as sexual, but because they are not offered to the viewer in that way. This is beautiful, warm, self-absorbed nudity that can be cooperatively enjoyed but not consumed.