Life in Marble
Life in Marble is a photographic exhibition exploring the role the of classical antiquity in configuring the notion of Whiteness and problematise the adoration of white marble within western culture.
Within this series I re-enacted the works of Italian Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova by re-imagining the myself as each sculpture. Exploiting my own fat queer body with its physical limitations, and flawed characteristics and mimicking the seductive shimmer of marble with a cheap polyester body suit. In my re-telling of Canova faultless sculptures, I want to deconstruct the fantasy of Whiteness with its perfected moralities and idolised beauty standards which these and similar marble sculptures represent I want the realism of my own body to create a sensitive re-reading of these sculpture as fallible and injudicious and not above scrutiny, and to raise questions about the motivations behind placing them at the centre of our national collections.