Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer who challenges society’s stereotypes. She has previously completed some work on film which consisted of her challenging cultural stereotypes. Her work consist of the focus of facial expressions thought the use of film in particular colour film. She has also explored social role playing, and through her work she attempted to exaggerate women traits these were release in 2000. She has often modeled for herself, she has also explored the idea of photographing herself looking fairly different in each image, and she created various characters with in herself. In term of my project, I wanted to explore the idea of people in the 21^st century wanting to change themselves and becoming obsessed with the idea of the ‘idea’ image. Previously in my investigation I have studied through the exploration of the artist ‘Elenore’ She uses mannequins in her work to manipulate them into using images. With Cindy Sherman I would like to explore the way she has changes the way she looks to create various character, and how this could become obsessive to people in the modern world. My title is ‘Postal’ linking it back to the title this could represent the extend people go to , to change the way that they look by possibly ordering thing online such flash lashes false tan to change themselves.

This image is shot in the studio. It consist of the photographer modelling for herself. She is positioned on the middle of the studio with a grey back ground. Through Sherman’s work she wanted to present a character, this character seems to look artificially and may possibly be wearing fake tan. Her make up is applied excessively to a point that she does not look herself. She is wearing a crown on her head which could symbolise the idea of a ‘perfect’ person who wanted to look the ‘ideal’. She could also be look at how beauty pagans may affect the people who take part. The idea that she appears to be smiling in the photograph however she does not seem to be happy. Intrinsically I feel as though the image is trying to make metaphoric references, that the character has all these things in her life and my have change various aspects of her life, however she is still very much unhappy. She could be seen as wearing a metaphoric mask, the makeup symbolising the mask that she wears to the world.

Response

For my Cindy Sherman responses I had asked my models to dress up and apply makeup which represented a character that people did not see often. I used the black studio as I felt this would focus on the subjects. By doing so this brought a studio feel, and felt like a drama studio. The idea that people can change and act a certain way to become someone they were not has triggered ideas for my project. I could then explore what my models wanted to change about themselves and why they felt these changes where necessary. One of my models wore a blonde wig the character she became was Marilyn Monroe, she felt powerful when she became this character and went as far as adding a beauty spot on the side of her mouth to achieve this look. But how far as a society are we willing to go to change our appearance. I beings with makeup but given the chance, and the fact the money wasn’t an issue would you change the way you looked. This was something I wanted to develop further in my work. I would then link to my project by exploring way which in an ideal world how easy could it be to change the way we look could it be as easy as ordering something online and having it delivered to you. Cindy uses quit a few props and does tend to that much Photoshop in her work similar to my other artist, so I must consider this when developing my work.