“Inside the Glass Box” is a series of images of mannequins presented portrait-style so as to emphasize the emotions on the faces of the “women.”  The project took two years to complete and features mannequins from actual shop windows in major cities around the country. The photographs are not composites or digitally-altered images. The reflections and "effects" are all real-life, available light elements of the as-found images, with only minor color and level adjustments.

The genesis of the project was in the observation that the vast majority of female mannequins in our culture display emotions of dysfunction, abuse and victimization: anger, depression and dissociation. 

These images of psychologically damaged “women,” like the mannequins they depict, often provoke a strong sexual response in the viewer. And it’s the association of emotional dysfunction and sexual response that is the disturbing subtext of the “Posable” project. 

Since mannequins are designed to make us buy the clothes they wear because we want to look like them, they are created to embody our “ideal” feminine. As such, they send – and reflect – the powerful message that to be desirable and marketable in our consumer culture, a woman must present herself as a victim – angry and in pain.  The choice to sculpt mannequins as psychologically dysfunctional victims sends a clear signal to women that in our culture, happiness and mental health are not sexy, not a saleable commodity and therefore, not acceptable life choices for women if we want to be sexually acceptable.

It is also significant that the “women” in this series are trapped behind the glass of their shop windows.  The archetypal imagery of a woman encased in glass is common in female mythology– two prominent examples are Snow White in her glass coffin and the metaphorical captivity of the heroine of Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.”  In the language of mythological symbolism, this glass container usually represents a state of unconsciousness and a woman’s disconnection from her authentic self.

Like the mannequins in this series, the cultural expectations and projections forced onto women by linking dysfunction with sexual desirability imprison our feminine power in a glass box – we become passive victims who exist to please and serve others, often unable to interact meaningfully with the outside world without compromising our desirability.

NOTE: The photographs in "Posable" are not composites or "Photoshopped" images. The reflections and "effects" are all available light, real-life images, with only minor color and level adjustments.

Click here to view the complete exhibition online or view the exhibition:

SOLO EXHIBITION of "INSIDE THE GLASS BOX"

A Corso Gallery
728 Canyon Road
Santa Fe, NM  87501
Opening reception, July 25, 4-7 p.m.
Exhibition runs through July 31