These last two directly reference two Op-Art artists: Bridget Riley and Josef Albers, respectively. I've provided examples of their work.
A few months ago I was watching the Instagram stories of one of the many beauty bloggers I follow, and she was at an exhibition full of stunning macro photos of makeup. I knew immediately the artist behind them would be the next Makeup as Muse installment. Michelle Murphy received a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She spent over a decade working as a photographer for NASA, and it's this experience that influenced a series of beauty and makeup-related photographs that she began in 2011. Since I am both bad explaining another artist's work and rather tired today, I figured I'd let an excerpt from Murphy's artist statement provide an overview of the themes in this series: "Working in a culture where the attainment of beauty is paramount and science strives to engineer the ultimate look, my photography explores the relationship between consumption and rebellion of these ideals. What contemporary advertising and media culture continue to broadcast as expected in female appearances provides my motivation to examine beauty products. Inspired by Op Art, scientific imaging, and third-wave feminism, I produce slick macro close-ups of the adorned, treated body and beauty 'tools'. Through my processes of creating still life and tactile experiments in my studio, I playfully use beauty products as art materials changing their purpose away from concealing or accentuating my face. In the more formal images I repeat and magnify the subject creating optical plays within two-dimensional space. My lighting, studio props, and color palettes provide an aesthetic mimicking modern advertising and scientific imaging…Beauty in its contemporary context is my discourse. I desire to shift 'the gaze' away from the female as a subject (or myself) to the over-the-counter beauty maintenance products themselves. The resulting images blend perceptual space and our cultural space…revealing the subject as abstraction, as metaphor, and again as consumable object."
We've seen macro images of makeup before, but it's Murphy's unique perspective that sets these apart from other close-ups. Weaving together her background in science-based photos, third-wave feminism (yay!), and art history, these aren't simply pretty pictures; they're a statement about consumerism and how we perceive and approach the notion of beauty. However, while the photos hold a deeper meaning, there's nothing wrong with appreciating their aesthetic qualities. As the artist notes, "When you stare at something closely for a long time, it dematerializes, losing its original significance and gaining significance in new ways. If we surrender to the images as only formalist works of art, we become lost in the lines, the texture, its metallic luster, and its play with scale. The makeup is no longer the subject; the viewer can escape into stardust or can simply scan back and forth over a flattened space eliciting nothing more than shapes, grids, or metallic gradients." I'm in full agreement on this – I can absolutely see myself getting lost in these images if I were able to see them in person. The macro scale also calls attention to how makeup is designed for the utmost visual appeal. It's an age-old advertising tactic, but one that still works hook, line and sinker today: if we own this beautiful object then we too can be beautiful. "I am using photography to reveal how an $8 manufactured palette of eye shadow entices a consumer. Its design and beauty works as a signifier of modernity, a utopic belief that you will become better by owning and using such a small thing. Because we already have years of advertising literacy embedded in our memory, buying this particular object becomes 2nd nature. Buying/consuming a product in this Western world is too easy when we think it is formally beautiful, and if we believe it’s necessary for personal improvement," Murphy states. Indeed, by focusing on makeup's texture, shapes and colors, Murphy captures what makes cosmetics so enjoyable and, for makeup enthusiasts, irresistible.
Let's get to the photos! Here are some from the first Perceptual Beauty series.
(image from missomnimedia.com)
(image from metmuseum.org)
Here is the second installment of Perpetual Beauty, which is heavily influenced by Murphy's work for NASA and resembles otherworldly landscapes. Once again, it's the artist's background in scientific photography that allows her to see makeup very differently than most of us do. I can't say I've ever been to a drugstore and noticed the visual similarity between an eyeshadow and the surface of another planet! "I am shopping at CVS for a depleted daily item that brought me into the store on my lunch break…10 minutes, 20 minutes slip away from me…I am thrilled to find an eye shadow that looks like Mars! NASA just announced the Curiosity rover landed successfully on Mars, and this product looks just like the fish-eye view from photos taken on the surface." Having looked at these, I'd be so curious to see Murphy's take on makeup products that intentionally attempt to look like galaxies and other outer space phenomena. I also imagine her photos of holographic/duochrome products would be exquisite.
The final installment of the Perceptual Beauty series depicts transgender individuals applying makeup. I'm afraid I don't have much insight into the meaning of these. Perhaps it's a commentary on how rarely the beauty industry uses close-up photos of transgender people applying makeup in their advertising. While we're seeing more of it, along with cis-gendered men who simply enjoy wearing makeup, the transgender models in these campaigns still adhere to more feminized notions of beauty. These photos, on the other hand, make us question conventional beauty standards and also represent an attempt to normalize non-traditional beauty ideals. As Murphy says, “My photographic and video art explores the opposing positions in the relationship – between consumption that objectifies the expression of idealized beauty – and rebellion against what our consumer culture deems as ideal. My work shifts the 'gaze' from the female as a subject (and often an object) to explore the purpose and role of beauty products. With my work, I am essentially questioning the nature of beauty ideals in today’s society and asking whether these ideals are driven from a personal perspective, or artificially created by consumer culture.”
I think the series could also be viewed as a reminder of the greater societal marginalization of transgender people. Sadly, the transgender community still faces much discrimination and violence on account of some not being to handle seeing those who perform gender differently than the norm, i.e. people who wear "traditional" visual markers of masculinity (facial hair, short men's haircut, etc.) but who also apply visible makeup. Whatever the significance of this series, Murphy is staying true to her mission of shifting the focus away from the standard female subject.
Following Perceptual Beauty, Murphy embarked upon another series entitled Nature's Beauty Tools: "I am replacing synthetically produced and manufactured beauty products (fake eyelashes, lipstick and silicone implants) with nature-sourced materials that serve as compelling stand-ins. Temporary sculptural props of twigs, mushrooms, slate, tree-bark, leaves, etc. are physically manipulated into tiny sculptures which are then temporarily attached to the model and photographed in studio environments. These materials are organic and often disintegrate quickly, so the photographs are orchestrated within a day of finding the source material. The dramatic artificial lighting, high depth-of-field focus, along with the large-scale presentation of the finished framed work sets the overall tone for the viewer, referencing both the fine art photographic history and contemporary advertising." Again, I'm not really sure what these are about…perhaps a critique of the beauty industry's use of "natural" in advertising their products, a term that has no real meaning.
I wonder if the lashes below were the inspiration behind these.
(images from michellemariemurphy.com unless otherwise noted)
You might be wondering why no companies have tapped Murphy to collaborate or use her work for advertising purposes. Turns out a company actually did use her work, but I'm not sure which one as my internet searches proved fruitless. The artist explains: "In the process of creating this body of work, the PR Director of a well-known makeup brand called me through my website. They saw the artwork I was creating with their products and wanted to co-opt my work into their social media outlets and in return to provide lots of their product as an in-kind donation to my art practice. At first reluctant to join forces with the industry, I saw an opportunity to show my work to their consumer audience. The success of this relationship was two-fold, I was no longer a customer of their make-up and I was offered several spin-off opportunities to beauty websites to share my work. My favorite moment was an interview with a beauty culture news website. The writer asked me a lot about my opinions and relationship to makeup and most importantly my responses were not edited. I had this moment to speak honestly to consumers about the difficulties with body politics related to the beauty industry." Unfortunately, the interview she mentioned doesn't seem to be available, and I was too chicken to email her to both conduct my own interview and clarify the brand that contacted her, but I suspect it may have been Maybelline based on this post. I would absolutely love to see more brands using her work. And one of my burning questions is what she thinks of space-inspired beauty, given her NASA background. 😉
Overall I'm quite smitten with these photos. They make us consider the deeper issues involving beauty standards and consumerism, but also represent a clear appreciation for makeup design and a desire to capture the beauty of makeup as object. I just wish that 1. more prints of her work were available and 2. I was close to Chicago so I could see the Responsive Beauty exhibition, which closes on October 21st. If you're in the area please check it out for me!
What do you think?