Artist Statement
About Women Series
My work has always used a female figure as a central character. Sometimes it is me, but most often I use a lifeless substitute -- a doll -- as a screen for projections. I expect the viewer to be lured by the beauty of the pictures, but also experience that there’s something uncanny about it.
‘Women’ (1998-2005) uses a “body double,” a life-size featureless cloth doll that inhabits the frame, instead of a real woman. The double here is not a real-life substitute, rather a ‘peel off’ from my body (I traced its outlines on a piece of fabric which served as foundation for the design). By this I mean to suggest an image being “pulled off,” the fabrication of a copy, a process of transfer. I deliberately used the thinness of the puppet to bring out the ‘flattening effect’ of reality produced by the photographic medium. The doll is nothing but an empty shell displayed for the camera. My photographs are somewhat reminiscent of Film Noir and a kind of ‘blue collar’ still-life atmosphere pervades them. Each pose conjures up a mind/body relationship.