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This multimedia piece is the final outcome of my A2 photography project which had the original aim to address the typical roles and characteristics associated with women and aesthetically confront them to create juxtaposing imagery with controversial subject matter. I was particularly interested in religious iconography because of its strict connotations and particularly explored the very indistinct line between purity and sexuality. After researching intently into the story of Lilith my focus changed to how women are viewed within religion. I wanted to target the connotations related to the ultimately ‘pure’ woman. I decided to look at prominent female figures such as Mother Mary and Lilith; Each hold aspects and associations with both purity and sexuality. I saw Lilith, Adams first ‘demonic’ wife, as a feminist icon. Within the Bible she is seen as an extremely negative and evil character whom was banished from Eden because she ‘disobeyed’ her husband by refusing to have sex with Adam. I used her particular story as a key insight into the key links between passive women and purity vs strong female characters and a negative portrayal. After exploring further into this subject matter I started to investigate into how male heroic figures are portrayed. The extreme difference between the two genders shocked me profoundly. The iconography is entirely opposite; Females tend to be covered up, in understated poses with neutral colour pallets whereas males wear hardly any clothes, celebrating the make form in an almost humorously homosexual manor, with proud strong and bold colours. With influence from the story of St Sebastian my piece displays the exploration between gender, sexuality and religious connotations. I felt it would be an interesting experiment to use a female model to represent a male heroic figure in hope of presenting these messages.
I chose my 3 most successful portrait images and presented them in a religious inspired triptych to the scale of A2. I presented this on dark red material, because of the connotations with sexuality and demonic elements the colour red holds, with dark melted candles to add to the eerie, old, warn and defeated glory aesthetics of my final piece. I wanted my character to still be seen as a grand, idolized figure however with a defeated aged, haunted quality. I placed old bibles around it combined with several more of my photographs in smaller scaled warn away golden frames to mimic this shrine aesthetic. The smaller photographs present both the pure and the grotesque and corrupted aspects of both stories.
I created and decorated the triptych out of wood, styled the frames and candles using spray paint and collage techniques. I used Photoshop and makeup to create the wounds on my model and a DSLR camera to take the photographs.
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| Author |
| Lottie Geliot , 18 yrs |
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| School |
| Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College |
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