As I have been looking into a lot of self-portrait artists who work in different media’s I decided to experiment and try a shoot on myself. I was heavily inspired by the work of Cindy Sherman, Charlie Denis and Nadia Lee Cohen who have all looked into the ideas surrounding suburban America, domestication and gender roles in relationships. Recently I have dyed my hair a pale blonde, so when I thought about my self-portraits I immediately thought about bleach blonde girls from Essex or Beverly Hills. I tried to channel this type of character and formulate how they would act, their gestures and their facial expressions etc.

I styled myself in a vintage corset which I found at a second hand store near me, black bottoms (not visible), ‘Playboy Bunny’ cuffs, ears and a collared bow time. To transform myself into this character; I gave myself an orange patchy tan with tan lines around the eyes (tan goggles), bold make up and body contour to accentuate some parts of the body. I experimented with how I took the images also. I took some clear shots so I could experiment with some illustrations on Photoshop and I took some in the style of Tim Walkers ‘Fleshy’ series with looks contorted, blurred and generally deformed and hellish which related to his mission of creating escapism for his audience- whether it is like a dream of nightmare.

I had fun on this shoot, even though I had some troubles when shooting and that the images did not come out exactly like I wanted. I think I have some images that demonstrate the extensive research I have undergone and led me further on my experimentation for FMP.