click image to view

I am the child of a "neat-freak" and a "pack-rat" therefore I horde, but only very specific things. Parts of my collection include mannequins and vintage clothing, which I undoubtedly attribute to a childhood filled with Barbie. But even as a child, I did not "play" with Barbie, I collected her, I owned her and the many superficial things she needed to be surrounded by, or so the advertisers told me.

As I use to arrange Barbie in her many fashions and pose her amongst her set of things, I now "dress up" my larger dolls to convey my views. I use the mannequin, not just as an ideal object meant to attract, but as a billboard for the idea I am selling. The mannequin plays upon our desire to consume goods and pulls the viewer in to see the larger idea at hand, but also is an inanimate object on which to project one's ideas.

In the MAIDen series, the mannequins represent the duality between being a maiden, one who is respected and adored versus being a maid, one who is subservient to another. In our culture there is a conflict between the message we send women and young girls. On one hand we want to empower them to be independent and confident, while on the other hand the media portrays a very specific female personage that many cannot live up to, creating a feeling of inferiority and failure.

The technique of digital collage used to compose my mannequin images, developed during my undergraduate studies in illustration. I needed a method to bring together different types of imagery, originals or appropriations, objects, hand-made or found and textures of all sorts. The use of the computer and software allow me to bring a multitude of pieces together in a seamless fashion.

Tech: Traditional and digital photography. Final collages constructed in Photoshop.