‘Perfectly Imperfect’ embodies the idea of loving ourselves ‘despite’. In today’s society, we are quick to apply Instagram filters, retouching ourselves and others, in order to seem perfect. The idea of perfection is something so many of us seem to be searching for, without really knowing what it is.
I’m taking this opportunity to showcase, and appreciate, the diversity of the female form, in all its shapes and sizes. Highlighting that every body is unique. Could we feel empowered by the characteristics that make us individual, not embarrassed by them? It’s time to start loving our dimples, bumps, wide hips, small breasts, stretch marks and body hair, rather than filtering them away. It is for this reason that I did not retouch any of images. All of these females are real and their beauty is there to behold.
It is my hope that people, especially young females, realise that they can be just as they are. There is no need to compare your body to anyone else’s in order to feel beautiful. As a society, I feel we need to stop mindlessly scrolling through accounts that make us feel inadequate, filling our brains with images of a distorted reality, and start encouraging each other to embrace our bodies in our own care.
The photographs are transferred by hand onto fabric. This process in itself creates an inherently perfectly ‘imperfect’ image.
SOME AFTERTHOUGHTS
I have photographed my friends nude, but never strangers. I was a bit nervous about this aspect, but to my surprise it went really well. I approached the shoot as I would have with any other shoot. I thought to myself these people were all here because they wanted to be. One of the women were a little more nervous than the others, but after I had done a couple of shots and showed her the images it went smoothly.
This was the sort of exhibition where everything that could go wrong went wrong, I thought finding a printer who could print large format laser prints would be easy, we live in Melbourne where possibilities are endless, to my surprise there was none. My printing place in Melbourne who did the two smaller sized 1.25m x 84cm prints, organised for the two larger sized images 2.24m x 1.5m to be printed in Sydney. The second bad news was that the prints were arriving a week and a half late from Sydney, which meant I only had a little over a week to finish the image transfer of the two large prints. In the end the prints did get to Melbourne. When I unpacked the prints from the tube I realised they had printed on the wrong paper. There must have been some miscommunication between the print shop in Melbourne and the printing place in Sydney, I had never used any other paper than thin “normal document paper” when making images transfers, these prints on the other hand resembled something about 10 times thicker than what I was used to. I had no time to request new prints, there was no option rather than for this to work out somehow.
Another aspect I was not completely happy with was the fact that the gallery did do any form of marketing until 4 days before the opening night. People kept asking me if I could send them the event and I had no info to give them as I had been told little to no information myself. If I ever were to exhibit something again I would definitely choose another gallery, the communication was terrible, I asked the same questions multiple times and still got no answer. When it came to deadlines for the artist statement and for when the pieces needed to be installed and taken down I got told that on the same day as it needed to be done. I am working, doing my masters, freelancing and have somewhat of a life, this was very disorganised and annoying as I had to drop everything last minute because they were not communicating properly.
I made a little video of how I make the prints. The prints in the video are mini versions compared to the exhibition pieces, they are only about A5 in size and ink jet printed. These two prints are pieces that I am making for the models that participated in the series and I only had one copy of each print, therefor only one chance to do the video with this assessment deadline in mind. What I found I could improve on for this aspect is to first of all get someone else to film me as the focus kept dropping out and my exposure changing as it went from being overcast and raining to bright sunlight. If I were to do the video again I would also think about shooting it in studio as that would look more professional than inside my bedroom. I think the video is fine to use on Linkedin, Youtube and Instagram, but it is definitely not professional enough for my website.
Linda Candy says “practice-based research is an original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge, partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice” (Candy, L. 2006 ). With my image transfers I tried a new method that I had been read multiple times would not work, namely using ink jet printed images. The thickness of the paper was another new experiment I encountered. As mentioned this was done by mistake, but there was no other options, I had to work, and it did work. Coleen Boyle proposes “that photography avoids the polemicized practice that reflective methods can fall prey to because it prepares the artist-researcher for transformation and change” (Boyle, 2014). Through my practice and process I learnt something, I had read everywhere online that you could not in fact transfer images that were ink jet printed, I contradicted this with my practice, as you can see it can in fact be done, It might be a more challenging and timely process, but it is achievable. Through my process, trying something unachievable, gave me new insight to the image transfer method that have not to my knowledge been done before, I think is a great accomplishment on its own.
Reference List:
Candy, L. (2006). “Practice Based Research: A Guide” (page numbers). Sydney, NSW, Australia. Sydney University of Technology.
Boyle, C. (2014). ‘Take(s) One to Know One: Photography and Practice-led Research’. The International Journal of the Image, [online] 6(1), pp.13-21, <https://www.academia.edu/8293351/Take_s_One_to_Know_One_Photography_and_Practice-led_Research._2014 [Accessed 24 Sep. 2019>.