The Manifest

This portrait forms part of a series called "The Manifest", which reflects on gender identity and the role contemporary photographic portraiture plays in the construction of the 'female' image. Does it capture or construct identity? In this photograph I respond to historic, costumed representations of 'authentic' gender by first establishing the constancy and indifference of clouds as the background; the female figure appears ascendant, carried aloft as if heavenward. Her costume appears to confirm her identity as hetero-normative wife and mother, yet closer inspection of her appearance reveals the costs of conformity and convention. Her anguished face and painted hands mock the grace of her garments; her feet have all but disappeared. The image is further disrupted by the balloon which seems to drag her skyward. Egg round, womb-like, but blood red, it suggests that but for this essential, inflated signifier of fertility and femaleness, she might fall to earth, or disappear altogether.