shrikedyke

I ate enough pineapple at dinner today to make most mortals weep. Not sure why I did that.

Anyway, here's a copy of my artist's statement, sorta. Brief rundown of my photo thesis project. Sorry it's pretentious. If you are a girl who has tattoos or a mohawk or just looks... "wierd" somehow, and you live in L.A or thereabouts, pleeeeaaaaseee volunteer to be in a photo? I will give you a nice copy of the photo, all huge and shining.... Anyway, here:

With this series of photographs, I hope to look into the stereotypes of women who choose a style for themselves that can be perceived as rebellious, along with the ways in which society enforces normalcy. To do this, Im drawing a comparison between the phenomenon of hysteria in the 19th century and the women I photograph. This comes from my experience that women who have tattoos, piercings, a shaved head, or make other style choices that seem to reject the societally accepted feminine aesthetic are frequently assumed to be emotionally disturbed, deeply unhappy, crazy, or having a breakdown.
Along with the treatment hysterical patients received, they were also subjected to obsessive photographing by their doctors, who encouraged the girls to perform their insanity for the camera. In a similar way, Im making environmental portraits of women who appear non-mainstream, focusing on a staged performance of craziness or obsession. My intention is for the series to be ambiguous as to who is creating the performance, the photographer or the model. In some cases, complicity is apparent, as the model acts out what many people might expect to be true about her. In other cases, the subject declines to fully participate in the performance, showing instead a more genuine reaction the setting and props prescribed for her. I hope through the varying degrees of truth and invention to take an ironic look at the inmates of a fictional asylum.