In Release the Hounds I am critically interested in subverting the way femininity, identity and beauty is represented and perceived, through portraiture. This series explores this topic through a range of intimate portraits of diverse women. In this work I employ digital techniques, ordinarily used to beautify and perfect, to subtly accentuate facial “imperfections”.
The artistic, social and political goal is to upset the balance viewers have come to expect from this genre. Often employed to tighten and hush flaws (particularly in media images of women), retouching occurs in Release the Hounds as the quiet enhancement of a feature that each model identified as challenging her self-esteem.
Coming from a retouching background, I am critically intrigued by how this manipulation alters perceptions of reality and feminine ideals. The figures are animal and creaturely, a pack of ‘hounds’ made powerful by their own self-loathing. Each figure becomes avariant of herself; not rendered weak by the exposure of her insecurity, but engaged in a strange yet graceful defiance, most pointedly as a multitude of individuals. Yet the internal roots of the women’s physical insecurities remain undisclosed, engaging the audience to survey the images in great depth.
The images were shot close-up in fading light and each figure exists in static tension with the space they occupy. This posturing tends towards a subliminal discomfort, theatrically displayed – not through the models themselves, but through post-shoot digital manipulation. As the series’ title suggests, the physical is emphasised.
Preconceived expectations of beauty are sent slightly off-kilter. The series functions as a gentle and uneasy deconstruction of perceived beauty ideals in our culture regarding how women should look and be represented in the media and in art. The work also playfully reconstructs the mythical power inherent in the ‘flaws’ of the represented figures, creating an eerie second-self.
Martha
Opel
Clare
Annabel
Audrey
Catherine
Clementine
Rowan
Gwen
Harper
Hazel
Akira
Ngaire
Olivia