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How did the
Responsive Beauty
series begin?
The 2010 census revealed the wage gap amongst the sexes;
women employed full-time make $0.79 for every $1.00
that a man makes. This led me to contemplate the role
of unpaid labor and consumption in creating a greater
economic disparity. I became specifically fixated on beauty
consumption.
Some of my earliest artistic influences dealt with beauty
posturing, artificiality, and drag. I was looking at the
work of Alex Bag, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Lorna
Simpson, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Carolee Schneeman, Laurie
Simmons, and Orlan. By not personally “fitting in” at any
grade level, beauty standards and gender posturing were
on my mind throughout my artistic expressions in high
school and college.
During my second year at the Cleveland Institute of Art,
I ventured over to Case Western Reserve’s medical library
and studied plastic surgery methods. I determined what
would be done to my face if someone were to slice, tuck,
and shave my natural face structure in order to create an
idealized image of a beautiful face. I used eyeliner to draw
the schematic on my face, and I took these photos of myself
in the lighting studio using my old medium format Mamiya
C220 film camera with a long cable release. I shot, developed
and printed these photos in 2001. The sociopolitical content
in my series,
Responsive Beauty,
was always on my mind.
By 2010 and the release of the wage gap data, I was
a photographer at NASA by day, and by night I was
experimenting withmy own photographic work in a divided
warehouse studio space amongst thoughtful painters. I
borrowed visual language from my regional history of
painting and combined it with my sociopolitical interests
and concerns. I have often wondered why abstraction was
considered apolitical, and how political work was often
figurative.
Responsive Beauty
is the unlikely collision of
pure aesthetics and sociopolitical content.
Howhas your time as a photographer forNASA influenced
your work?
There are many skills that I honed working in that
environment, but the most obvious is my use of lighting.
I often photographed metallic objects in metallic test
facilities with a researcher in the shot, too. These were
advanced lighting challenges that pushed me to understand
the properties of photography well beyond my academic
experience.
Below the surface of lighting and technical proficiency, is
an aesthetic culture at NASA - to produce photographs
containing high depth-of-field (i.e. everything in the
composition in focus). My theory behind this aesthetic
culture is that they want their projects to look “more real
than real”. Human eyesight works similarly to seeing a
photo with shallow depth of field (we see space at about
the equivalent of F 5.6). By looking at a photograph
where everything is in focus, it allows us to study the
subject without guessing what was in front of the lens. My
NASA photos, as well as the history of NASA images in
the archive were mostly shot in F11 or higher. My series
Responsive Beauty
and much of my artwork during or after
my experience as a photographer at NASA purposefully
embraces this “more real than real” aesthetic.
How does this series of work respond to the history of
minimalism?
Referencing works from the past by Bridget Riley, Agnes
Martin, Julian Stanczak, Willem de Kooning, and Albers…I
have the ability to appropriate multiple genres and methods
of painting within one body of work. Photographing my
miniature make-up paintings and the products in their
original cases allows me to flatten and combine these
layers of process and references. Op becomes more than
dematerialized vibration; it becomes a method to create a
lethargic response. This effect or optical exhaustion is my
method of mimicry and critique of the beauty industry itself.
What do you want viewers to take away after visiting
your exhibition?
Though it is difficult to predict what one viewer over another
will take away from this work, it provides a means for
discussion surrounding ideas about beauty, abstraction,
and consumption.
Image detail (left):
Turbulence
, Michelle Marie Murphy, 2014. Courtesy of the artist. Image (above): “Concept for Plastic Surgery: Anterior View and Lateral View” (self portrait), Michelle
Marie Murphy, 2001, courtesy of the artist.