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"Your work has transcendental value because it is beyond good and evil, right and wrong, outside of the law. It is literally insane." Charles Merward Philosopher and practicing psychoanalyst
In the spring of 2009, the Italian fashion house Missoni printed an eleven-page catalog for their high-end Estate line in which the theme was a beach scene without a sea, photographed in a studio. The photographs are exquisitely retouched. I began working with and against the strategies of this catalog, photographing people who have experienced severe physical trauma from accident, birth defect or assault to surpass standards of representation. The results offer a glimpse past life's pretends; functioning as an homage to the real, with sublime respect for the human condition.
The overall goal is to replicate the original twelve images in the catalog with models who have evidence of physical trauma including retouching them until a heightened state is achieved that is similar in effect to the heightened state achieved in advertising. In the photos I take after the replications the models are asked to do what they like on the set and I use multiple strategies to surpass or break down the standards of representation. |