Artist Statement

Digital technology advances means that we are reaching the end of truth within photography. Every image and representation is now a potential fraud. (A, Aziz and S, Cucher 1994)
Through developments in technology photography has been freed of the rigid conventions of realism, photography is now capable of representing not just what is real but what is possible.
Idealisation of the body has been at the heart of artmaking since classical Greece, it has now crossed aesthetic and technical boundaries and has resulted in the representation of human perfection, for example air brushing techniques on cover models.
Through this project have shown a link between the natural and the artificial. The natural, being the simply composed image of everyday people. The artificial in that the images will be altered in such a way that the viewer will question the truth of images. It will be obvious that the images are all of the same person but subtle alterations on PhotoShop allow the viewer to be drawn in.
The images are altered in accordance to Dr Steven Marquardt,s universal beauty mask. The mask has been calculated to the ratio of 1 to 1:618 (the golden ratio). The ancient Greeks were aware of this and used it within their art. These proportions are responsible for thousands of art works throughout the history of western art.
I have examined issues of reconfiguration of self, particularly within today's media culture, which puts pressures of people, especially women to look a certain way. Women turn to television and glossy magazines to gain beauty advice, in the hope of becoming, somebody which is impossible, as most of the images within the media are digitally altered.

Catherine Cane

Southampton Institute: Ba(hons)Photography