With an ongoing interest in how society dictates and defines how women live and how they will look while doing so. I started comparing what society thinks it’s creating with what is actually being produced. I was interested in how women are taking back control/power through research into femme fatale, female strength and female monsters.
The resulting works where Untitled (butterfly) and the Phalaenopsis, Hybrid, City Girl series
Phalaenopsis, Hybrid, City Girl, colour photograph, 1.2 x 1.2 m, 2006
Photographed in crisp and acute detail the Phalaenopsis, Hybrid, City Girl series is an extreme close-up of orchids. Drawing on the history and status of orchids being difficult to grow and therefore highly prized as symbols of perfection, I have undermined this by choosing an artificial, mass-produced specimen. Not only eliminating the fleetingness of beauty but also transforming the orchid into a monster by enlarging it from the flower’s true size of smaller than your hand, to a freakish proportion which reveals its artifice. By making the photograph an edition of one, takes the mass-produced back to the unique in the gallery environment.
Exhibited
Secret Life of Plants, Hirschfeld Gallery, Wellington, NZ, 2007
Koru Lounge, Wellington, NZ, 2006 – 2007
Exposure ’06, Massey graduating show, Wellington, NZ, 2006
