"Untitled” involves the recreation of specific fashion advertisements using myself as the literal subject or model. The recontextualization of these images within the gallery space asks for a reexamination of our inattentive acceptance of the questionably offensive roles and messages depicted.  The implications of these quotidian images cease to be invisible and are put into a situation and a space that invites and actually expects contemplation and scrutiny.  My use of self-portraiture further changes the context of these images by transforming the ‘object’ of the photo into the artist subject.  The lush appearance of these objects and the slight static nature of the reproduced poses underscores the candied absurdity of these images, subtly stripping away elements of the fabricated drama while preserving a level of eroticism.  These portraits maintain and even heighten materially, the pleasing aesthetic and seductive language of commercialism from their advertisement counterpart, linking to the desires and temptations of the viewer while simultaneously challenging their assumptions.

The history of direct parody is used in this work as a tool; an appropriation of appropriation which signals a familiar trope of postmodernism and acts as yet another clue as to why these images are not fashion.  My images walk a parodic fine line masquerading as viable fashion photographs, daring the audience into a misconception and subsequently, ousting their complicity in the scenario.   The idea of the ‘gaze’ is contorted and contracted almost by way of entrapment.

This body of work consists of a total of 14 images, including 12 vertical pieces measuring 60” x 48” each and 2 horizontal diptychs measuring 60” x 96”.  Each piece is produced as a digital photograph mounted on a wood panel and then covered with a clear, glossy epoxy resin.