Los Angeles, United States, 1975
Visual artist and researcher focused on feminist theory, gender studies, and voices of resistance. She studied English Literature and Studio Art at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she currently lives and teaches Composition and Rhetoric. Emerging artist whose photography incorporates vintage clothing and furniture to create set designs that arise from a multitude of identity stereotypes that have arisen out of feminist theories with the silencing and suppression of the female voice in the contemporary landscape. She assumes multiple roles in her work as an author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, and wardrobe mistress to create conceptual, highly surreal portraits of women. Since 2017 she has been featured in two solo shows and numerous groups shows.
Have you ever felt overlooked? Silenced? Trapped? Even replaceable? My photography explores these struggles and offers me a way to be seen and heard. The Lampshade Project, a series of over twenty subversive images, features women whose identity is veiled by a lampshade to signify how ridiculous it is how so many women are still silenced, objectified, or expected to remain “hidden.” Does it make you uncomfortable, even angry, to confront an image of these woman who are stripped of their identity and put on display as beautiful objects of decoration? Good, because this paradigm needs to change. I spend countless hours preparing to make each photograph and my process involves curating the design of the set, the vintage wardrobe, and props, as well as selecting the model, all of which simultaneously trap the woman in a bygone era of seemingly outdated values. My subversive photography and The Lampshade Project in particular is a way for me to join the voices of resistance and to visually say, "Nevertheless, she persisted."
But aren’t things getting better, you might ask. Yes and no. Even in the wake of the Me Too movement, with more people being aware of inequalities and outright abuses, I still—as a women moving throughout the world, in business meetings and personal relationships—witness basic incongruities. In my seemingly liberal circles in my seemingly liberal state of California, women are still valued more for their looks than their intellect. Women are still interrupted and their ideas dismissed, as if their opinions were second class. Women are still judged for working if they are simultaneously raising children. Women are still valued more for their quiet domestic service rather than for their accomplishments outside the home. Women are still silenced and hidden every day in personal relationships, business hierarchies, and government service—any place where patriarchy persists. Not to mention more outright abuses happening daily like sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking. My hope is that The Lampshade Project, as a series of visual rhetoric, will add to the current conversation and illuminate these inequalities worldwide. The artist currently resides and teaches in San Luis Obispo, California.
Jenny Ashley. (Los Angeles, United States, 1975)
Artista visual e investigadora especializada en teoría feminista, estudios de género y voces de resistencia. Estudió Literatura Inglesa y Arte de Estudio en la Universidad Estatal Politécnica de California-San Luis Obispo, donde actualmente reside e imparte clases de Composición y Retórica. Como artista emergente, su fotografía incorpora vestuario y mobiliario de décadas anteriores para crear escenarios que hablen sobre la multitud de estereotipos identitarios y denuncien la voz femenina en el paisaje contemporáneo. Su trabajo incluye la autoría, dirección, maquillaje, peinado y guardarropa para crear piezas conceptuales. Desde 2017 cuenta con dos exposiciones individuales y varias muestras colectivas.
Have you ever felt overlooked? Silenced? Trapped? Even replaceable? My photography explores these struggles and offers me a way to be seen and heard. The Lampshade Project, a series of over twenty subversive images, features women whose identity is veiled by a lampshade to signify how ridiculous it is how so many women are still silenced, objectified, or expected to remain “hidden.” Does it make you uncomfortable, even angry, to confront an image of these woman who are stripped of their identity and put on display as beautiful objects of decoration? Good, because this paradigm needs to change. I spend countless hours preparing to make each photograph and my process involves curating the design of the set, the vintage wardrobe, and props, as well as selecting the model, all of which simultaneously trap the woman in a bygone era of seemingly outdated values. My subversive photography and The Lampshade Project in particular is a way for me to join the voices of resistance and to visually say, "Nevertheless, she persisted."
But aren’t things getting better, you might ask. Yes and no. Even in the wake of the Me Too movement, with more people being aware of inequalities and outright abuses, I still—as a women moving throughout the world, in business meetings and personal relationships—witness basic incongruities. In my seemingly liberal circles in my seemingly liberal state of California, women are still valued more for their looks than their intellect. Women are still interrupted and their ideas dismissed, as if their opinions were second class. Women are still judged for working if they are simultaneously raising children. Women are still valued more for their quiet domestic service rather than for their accomplishments outside the home. Women are still silenced and hidden every day in personal relationships, business hierarchies, and government service—any place where patriarchy persists. Not to mention more outright abuses happening daily like sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking. My hope is that The Lampshade Project, as a series of visual rhetoric, will add to the current conversation and illuminate these inequalities worldwide. The artist currently resides and teaches in San Luis Obispo, California.