SKIN 2003 part 2 index

It is suggested that the work is of the genre "Tableaux Vivants". These living pictures are physical re-enactments or recreations inspired by renaissance art, the Church (which is seen as the greatest influence on Western civilisation), and Western social and sexual roles. In other words, it is an assault on bourgeois concepts of what constitutes a masterpiece. It can be argued that the modern root of "Tableau Vivants" goes as far back to Marcel Duchamps, Man Ray, & Rene Magritte; and today, Cindy Sherman, Yasumasa Morimura and Hiroshi Sogimoto. Positioned somewhere between performance and static immobility, these living pictures direct the gaze towards the gesture, towards physiognomies, towards guise and disguises. I consider my work to be painterly in its use of the photographic medium. Specific mention should go to the dramatic techniques of chiaroscuro introduced in to Renaissance painting by Caravaggio and Rembrandt. There are great areas of darkness and yet great depth, subtle illumination of the subject and a strong emphasis on gesture and iconography.

The work is infused with a strong performance element by suggesting narrative, emphasising locality and having subjects play iconic roles in a surprising non-traditional fashion. The references to fetish culture are subtle and the work is reverential in its beauty. An attempt to lay open the irony that infuses Christian representation of the body by reversing the traditional subordination of the erotic to the spiritual.
To date, the work is in 4" x 5" positive format and printed on Fujichrome.