Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is a well known photographer and film director born in New Jersey, USA. She became interested in art while she was in college, where she was studying to become a painter. She quickly dropped out and started studying photography instead, because painting was a male dominant profession. She once said "We couldn't or didn't really want to go into the male-dominated painting world, so since there weren't any artists who were using photographs, we thought, 'Well, yeah, let's just play with that.' " (Hattenstone, 2011). 

Sherman was first introduced to the New York art scene with a series of untitled film stills.They are portraits of herself in which she took on the role of career girl, housewife, siren and woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As a child she loved playing dress up, but obviously that has not changed. Through the use of wigs, costumes and lots of make up, she investigates the meaning of identity, vulnerability and power. She prefers printing her artwork big - 6ft tall or even more, and most of the times uses vibrant, harsh colors.

People who meet her in say that she is very sweet and always smiling, but in most of her self portraits she looks fierce, sinister. I love the fact that she is the ultimate chameleon. She can transform herself into any sort of character she likes, always with success. I believe she is one of the top portraiture photographers of this generation.


References:

Hattenstone, S., 2011. Cindy Sherman: Me, Myself and I, The Guardian, [online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jan/15/cindy-sherman-interview [Accessed 11 April 2012]

Lacayo, R., 2012., Cindy Sherman - The Heroine with a Thousand Faces, TIME Lightbox, [online] Available at:  http://lightbox.time.com/2012/02/23/cindy-sherman-the-heroine-with-a-thousand-faces/#1 

Wikipedia, 2012., Cindy Sherman, [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sherman