User:Sally stockhold

artist statement

For the past several years I’ve been creating a photographic autobiography titled “myselfportraits #1”series. I’ve done photographic tableaux using myself as the “canvas” to examine aspects of my personal feelings and philosophy about aging. My new photography work, “myselfportraits: ode to icons and other absurdities” is also staged with props and hand-painted backgrounds. I photographed myself depicting icons that were actual women as well as fictional characters from literature, advertising, and art. For me, these people are all “real.” They exhibit strength, courage, nobility and determination despite internal turmoil and external obstacles. In researching this project, I felt that I was getting very close to their “back story”, the irony and absurdity which they experienced in their lives. I began to “embody” these women, to try to imagine their thoughts as life swirled around them. These pictures were never “taken” by me, but “given” to me graciously by these icons.