This series of images seeks to examine the boundaries between notions of beauty and disfigurement with regard to the human body. My practice confronts the taboos which necessitate that some kinds of scars are kept hidden. It exposes the paradox that some scars may be seen as acceptable, beautiful, or even erotic, while others provoke negative reactions in the viewer. It is an examination of the scar as a signifier of beauty, eroticism, horror, bravery, and worship. The images question society’s consistency regarding judgements of beauty and censorship. Through the exhibition of a series of photographs of bodies which trace and transgress the boundaries of accepted norms of beauty, the viewers are challenged to question and re-evaluate their ideals and beliefs regarding what may be considered beautiful.
The work explores ideas generated by texts and contemporary art relating to the aesthetics of beauty, norms of beauty, concepts of ugliness, the politics of beauty, the influence of the fashion, advertising and photography industries in shaping a vision of beauty, the role of the disabled people’s movement, the notion of abjection, feminism, and issues of power, control and freedom, and is primarily concerned with the aesthetics of contemporary Western beauty.
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Diane Bruford Born London, England, 1970
Graduated from Loughborough College of Art with BA Hons Fine Art (Sculpture) in 1993 and MA Fine Art (Print) from Wimbledon School of Art, London in 2004.
Working with digital photography since 1998, has exhibited at the following galleries 2001 generate, Ferens Gallery, Hull 1999 On the Shelf, Firstsite, the Minories art gallery, Colchester 1999 Out on a Limb, University of Essex Gallery 1998 Focal Point Photography Gallery
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