Stefanie Kirlew

My practise focuses mainly on the photograph, and the concept of its place viewed as ‘reality’. I endeavour to work with the ‘language’ that it creates, and how society perceives and accepts this format as a given through the complex amalgamation of given elements which amount to a whole which is digested as truthful. These ‘popular’ images often stem from the media, ideologies that we have been over-exposed to throughout our lives, fed to us as true, and thus causing us an undisputed acceptance and almost numbness to the concepts that they supposedly portray.

My work utilises myself and my own family to parody the genre of portraiture; which is an integral feature on the walls of my own home, as that of many others, to question that which lies beneath the image.

The physically damaged (abused?) faces of the featured persons force the viewer to reconsider the presumption of ideological happiness usually associated with this type of photography, and begin to weave a story in regards to what goes on behind closed doors.