GRAVITY

A study of the human form that juxtaposes neo-classical and baroque sculpture with photographic nudes. The work explores gesture, bodies and gait in an age where the body is relentlessly commodified, digitised and sexualised.

The working title "Gravity" comes from the principal force that dictates how the human skeleton is formed, and how a sculptor must shape a lump of stone. My training as an architect was regularly interrupted with references to the Vitruvian man, and its lumpy cousin, Le Corbusier's Modulor man - everything is body-centric. I started photographing sculptures in museums because they don't move and are nicely lit. It allowed me to focus on composition. Then when I started shooting actual people, I just went for it and got them to move as they wished, asking them to hold a pose if it got close to a classical stance. The "perfect" poses and bodies of the sculpted forms appear exaggerated in contrast to the fallible, tangible forms of real people - and vice versa. 

2022-ongoing