Jemima Stehli

For my dissertation entitled 'Who has control, Artist or Model?' one of the main artists I am discussing is Jemima Stehli as I find her work fascinating as it deliberates around theories of the gaze and the objectification of the female body. Often using herself as the subject, she questions the notion that the female nude can only be viewed passively. As I research more into her work she has become a bigger and bigger influence to me and I love her confidence of putting herself and her body out there. Something I wish I could do more and want to do more. I recently purchased these two books to use as research for my essay and have been totally absorbed in them, especially Contemporary British Women Artists in their own words which interviews 20 of what I believe are some of the most important women in art today, it is extremely interesting to read as a female artist myself.

The main work by Stehli that I am looking at is her Strip series, where she slowly reveals her naked body to a series of male curators, art dealers, writers and critics, asking them to release her camera's shutter through a cable from time to time. The set is her studio, a place that is often considered a site of narcissistic production, and her body is one that fits the idealized version of a female body promoted by the media. By using the power of a body stripped bare to agitate and fluster, Stehli denies her subject control of their own image, while still relinquishing her own control by asking him to decide on the moment of representation. I absolutely love the complexities of this series as we see the personalities of the men as they either deliberately look away from her naked presence or stare straight at her with masculine bravado. It is a fascinating series to research and here are some of the images for you to decide upon but I strongly recommend her book pictured above as it has a lot more of her wonderful work all dealing with the idea of the voyeuristic gaze.