Themes / Fantasy and Myth

Fantasy and Myth

I grew up reading fantasy and imagining myself as a more magical creature. That parallel way of looking has stayed with me. People I know can become nymphs, animals or figures from an unfamiliar story. Sometimes we begin with a mask or a costume. Sometimes the creature appears through a pose, a change of colour, or something I recognise in the photograph afterwards.

The rooms remain visible: a table, a sofa, shelves of books and CDs. They give these imagined lives somewhere to happen.

A crouching figure on a table in a room with drawings, a mirror and an open window.

Two Nymphs

In Two Nymphs, I saw forest spirits in two women sitting on a green sofa. The models were inventing their own poses as we moved around the room. This position emerged during the shoot, and I immediately recognised something from the fantasy worlds I had loved when I was younger.

What matters to me is that these creatures have very little to do. They might sit on branches, comb their hair or listen to birds. Their lives can feel full without the need to achieve anything. Here, the sofa supplies the forest; the shelves and cigarette belong to the city. I think of them as urban nymphs.

Two women sitting closely together on a green sofa beside shelves of books and CDs.
Two Nymphs, 2021.
Two figures on a green sofa, one seated and one blurred in movement, with shelves on either side.

Familiar creatures

Fantasy has room for the ridiculous. A small crown sits above a woolly wrap. A huge parrot head changes the proportions of a body. Beneath the antlers, a face and an open hand remain clearly visible. The person and the creature occupy the same photograph.

A man wearing a small crown and holding a woolly white wrap around his face.
A woman in a green checked shirt wearing an antlered animal head above her face, with one hand raised.
A bare torso beneath a large red and orange parrot mask, against a dark background.

Elsewhere, the body begins to lose its familiar shape. Overlapping hands cover faces, or colour makes a crouching figure seem to float. These images return me to the possibility of being something other than the person I usually recognise. A room or a tree is enough for that possibility to take hold.

Pale overlapping faces and arms, with hands covering the faces, against a dark ground.
A red crouching figure appears suspended against a purple and green background.
A figure crouching in the fork of a tree among dense branches.