Lisa Gipton
“My photographic work over the past five years has focused upon issues relating to the generic characterisation of female beauty and sexuality in advertising and the mass media. I am particularly interested in the mythology of romance, as it pertains to popular media, cinema and literature. My work delves into the modern myth of feminine ideals – ideal beauty, ideal lifestyle and ideal love. My work is informed by a broad range of sources including modern feminist theory, the history of art (particularly still life painting), classic romantic literature and popular culture in all its forms.
In all these series I have mimicked the photographic techniques that are used in fashion photography. I see the rich drapery in my photographs as a reference to concealment, and the surface of the female body. The luxurious, dewy surface of the silk and satin materials enables me to create sexy, sensual images that evoke a tactile response from the viewer. In the Touch Me, Hold Me, Love Me series the frames are an integral and expressive part of the work; they have been specially designed, and painted in a high gloss metallic finish to match the lustre and colour of the print.
Cover Girl (2003) is a series of Polaroid photographs; these works are sourced directly from popular-culture, referencing and reinterpreting images from glossy fashion magazines. By re-photographing these images from fashion advertising, cropping and re-composing the original I draw attention to the underlying eroticism of fashion culture.
My recent series Sheer Cover (2004) features a group of large, luscious and highly manipulated digital images. The work is unashamedly about sex, taking my cue from the fashion and advertising industries credo “sex sells”. This work is a reaction to the exploitation of feminine fantasy and sexuality for commercial purposes – my images ironically mimic the implied sexuality of advertising imagery.”
(Lisa Gipton 2006)
