A body of work in search of new meanings when looking at mythology and masquerade in female representations.
Often following the archetype; the maiden & madonna or the whore - and in-between lies the over-sexualized woman hardly in charge of her own pleasure. Repressed fears and desires are projected onto the female body and thus portrayed with a message that there is only one (or the other) way to be a woman, and one way to fit into archetypes created for us; the paradox of being seen (as a body) and unseen (as a subject). Joan Riviere’s seminal work “Womanliness as a Masquerade” (1929) argues that the masquerade is the symptom and the cure of women’s anxiety of trespassing the borders between domestic and public spheres - a balance between disguise and display, where she can reclaim and liberate her body and the privacy that exists in her own reflection. Additionally, the mask, or the persona, for Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, is the face the individual presents to the world—"a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual."
Mainly inspired by surrealists and painters, this body of work consists of self portraiture blended with images of women exploring certain personas and archetypes. A bride considering her presumed identity, or the saint whom is veiled but not hidden. She is masked for the purpose of revealing and concealing, like Venetian aristocrats and peasants, disguised by their masks, playing out their fantasies.
