Cindy Sherman
I have to be honest and say that I’ve looked at her work over and over again. Yet her presence is still as strong as when I discovered her work the first time.
I find that Sherman’s work takes me to another place where I subconsciously question everything. How did she take that shot? Why did she dress like that? How effective is her use of colour? I find with Sherman’s work there is a stark contrast between her earlier and later works.
Firstly, her earlier untitled film series took me into a different reality, as if I was watching her in a Hollywood movie, I felt a little rude like I was spying on her although I couldn’t quite pull my eyes away from her images. She’s a very beautiful woman and it’s easy to think that she belonged in the silver screen however it was fascinating to read about how she was trying to get across the message of being against the very thing she was portraying – creating an interesting double meaning.
Comparing her earlier works though to her more recent works you can see how her characters evolved into sheer exaggerations. This put me off a little, because I was so enthralled by her convincing world, I felt the exaggeration was just that – a little too much. I no longer believed that these people could exist instead I had no idea what to think, all I could think of was how fake these characters are yet this was another reflection Sherman obviously felt about society.
I’ve always admired Sherman’s courage something of which, I think, will continue to inspire me. It’s refreshing to read about an artist who isn’t caught up on thoughts and interpretations or writing extremely wordy essays about how complex their work is.
Quite recently I’ve found snippets from interviews which have only furthered my interest in her as an artist.
“I feel I’m anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren’t self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.“
This is really relevant to my work. I do use myself in all of my photos and I’ve never really thought of why; I’m not particularly vain nor am the modelling type, to be honest I couldn’t be any further from that.
Though using myself I never really view what I’m doing as an image of me, it’s quite difficult to explain what I mean here but I’ll try anyway, it’s as if I’m an actor and the resulting image is just like a film. I’m portraying characters, people that I think up or people that I have seen, it’s a sort of freedom because I’m not trapped by the idea of just producing a self-portrait. Another quote from Sherman which entirely backs up what I’m trying to say:
“Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren’t meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.”
