The Red Carpet Series explores how women have chosen to beautify themselves, an issue that has plagued feminism. I am keen to address western society’s infatuation with celebrity culture which seems to validate a certain type of beauty/ideal. A culture that is akin to the adoration of goddesses in western art history. Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) father of psychoanalysis suggests that the drive for being desired by others is so strong that it creates the exhibitionist within us. The Red Carpet series intends to capture the very essence of the glamorised celebrity who exposes as much flesh as she dares to draw in the male gaze and the media who exasperates it. By focusing on her back or cleavage I reveal how celebrities are reduced to flesh and form, which ultimately reduces the woman herself to anonymity. 

Woman in Gold was inspired by Gustav Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer a wealthy Austrian Industrialist & patron to the arts and the true story behind it  During WWII the Bloch-Bauer Klimt art collection was seized by the Nazi's and the works were later transferred to the Austrian National Gallery where they were displayed for decades until her niece Marie Altmann succeeded in her legal battle against the Austrian Government and the Bush Administration at the US Supreme Court Victory. The story went on to inspire two films: Stealing Klimt and the Woman in Gold .