Hidden Women. The Lamphade Project


Recalling a long tradition of portraiture and theatrical story telling in art, Jenny Ashley (Los Angeles, California, 1975) utilizes the camera and the tools of literature to create her socially critical images. An avid collector herself, Ashley incorporates vintage clothing and set design in each vignette where her protagonists assume roles that have arisen from stereotypes in feminist theories with the silencing and suppression of the female voice in the contemporary landscape.


Ashley follows in the legacy of post modern feminist artists such as Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger who delve into cultural assumptions yet Ashley uniquely challenges the common illusions of the feminine mystique, the patriarchal notions that a woman’s place is in the home and that her success can only be achieved through the roles of mother and housewife. Ashley’s photographs construct and critique socially held beliefs about domesticity that still prevail in the majority of the world. Through this series, the artist presents the uncomfortable notion that a woman’s prime source of fulfillment is directly linked to the well held belief of domestic goddess.


Ashley first began working on her photographic series The Lampshade Project in 2017 to highlight gender inequalities and the objectification of women. The concepts for this series first took root at the California Polytechnic State University where she studied English Literature and Studio Art with an academic focus on feminist theory, gender studies and voices of resistance.


In each photograph, the face of the model is obscured by a lampshade. By hiding the female face the individually and voice of the woman is stripped away. The images task the viewer to question whether the woman in the photograph is a mannequin, an object representing a woman, or an actual woman and thus blurring the lines between identity and objectification. The lampshade becomes a mask in which a woman hides, denying her true self and becoming what some men look for in a wife, someone who is subservient, docile and obedient.


Ashley choose to use vintage clothes to explore the idea of role playing. The clothes are not an expression of the woman’s true identity, but rather how culture expects her to appear as either a highly demure or sexualized object. The woman becomes nearly invisible in a domestic setting as she is seen as fanaticized notion of a sex appeal without the essence of identity.


Additionally, this series focuses on the female as a universally marginalized group who is valued as a source of décor or decoration rather than a sovereign entity and essential component and contributor to society and culture. The photographs become a symbol for those women who have been undervalued, dismissed and ignored –past or present.


The Lampshade Project presents a dichotomy or “art as argument” with the power of visual rhetoric as the images suggest one’s limitation to truly know the individual and simultaneously understand the role of gender as defined by traditional models. With this series and exhibition, Ashley challenges her audience to reconsider common beliefs and stereotypes about a woman’s place.


Accompanying each photograph, Ashley uses the medium of advertising to further point out the absurdity of these commonly held beliefs. The lampshades have a brand name a logo, like an actual company. The photographs take on the appearance of advertisements to sell the idea that to achieve the ultimate status of domestic bliss one must simply don a lampshade. The artist applies the methods of subversive advertising to create an environment of satire. Each photograph is accompanied by a tag line using ironic humor and exaggeration to expose the absurdities of a woman’s role in the home and in the larger culture.


These works are even more poignant given the current climate #MeToo and #TimesUp movements with the revelation of abuses towards women and in turn the important fight brought forefront for a woman’s voice to be heard.

Hidden Women

THE LAMPSHADE PROJECT

Recalling a long tradition of portraiture and theatrical story telling in art, Jenny Ashley (Los Angeles, California, 1975) utilizes the camera and the tools of literature to create her socially critical images. An avid collector herself, Ashley incorporates vintage clothing and set design in each vignette where her protagonists assume roles that have arisen from stereotypes in feminist theories with the silencing and suppression of the female voice in the contemporary landscape.


Ashley follows in the legacy of post modern feminist artists such as Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger who delve into cultural assumptions yet Ashley uniquely challenges the common illusions of the feminine mystique, the patriarchal notions that a woman’s place is in the home and that her success can only be achieved through the roles of mother and housewife. Ashley’s photographs construct and critique socially held beliefs about domesticity that still prevail in the majority of the world. Through this series, the artist presents the uncomfortable notion that a woman’s prime source of fulfillment is directly linked to the well held belief of domestic goddess.


Ashley first began working on her photographic series The Lampshade Project in 2017 to highlight gender inequalities and the objectification of women. The concepts for this series first took root at the California Polytechnic State University where she studied English Literature and Studio Art with an academic focus on feminist theory, gender studies and voices of resistance.



In each photograph, the face of the model is obscured by a lampshade. By hiding the female face the individually and voice of the woman is stripped away. The images task the viewer to question whether the woman in the photograph is a mannequin, an object representing a woman, or an actual woman and thus blurring the lines between identity and objectification. The lampshade becomes a mask in which a woman hides, denying her true self and becoming what some men look for in a wife, someone who is subservient, docile and obedient.


Ashley choose to use vintage clothes to explore the idea of role playing. The clothes are not an expression of the woman’s true identity, but rather how culture expects her to appear as either a highly demure or sexualized object. The woman becomes nearly invisible in a domestic setting as she is seen as fanaticized notion of a sex appeal without the essence of identity.


Additionally, this series focuses on the female as a universally marginalized group who is valued as a source of décor or decoration rather than a sovereign entity and essential component and contributor to society and culture. The photographs become a symbol for those women who have been undervalued, dismissed and ignored –past or present.


The Lampshade Project presents a dichotomy or “art as argument” with the power of visual rhetoric as the images suggest one’s limitation to truly know the individual and simultaneously understand the role of gender as defined by traditional models. With this series and exhibition, Ashley challenges her audience to reconsider common beliefs and stereotypes about a woman’s place.


Accompanying each photograph, Ashley uses the medium of advertising to further point out the absurdity of these commonly held beliefs. The lampshades have a brand name a logo, like an actual company. The photographs take on the appearance of advertisements to sell the idea that to achieve the ultimate status of domestic bliss one must simply don a lampshade. The artist applies the methods of subversive advertising to create an environment of satire. Each photograph is accompanied by a tag line using ironic humor and exaggeration to expose the absurdities of a woman’s role in the home and in the larger culture.


These works are even more poignant given the current climate #MeToo and #TimesUp movements with the revelation of abuses towards women and in turn the important fight brought forefront for a woman’s voice to be heard.