MISShapes
“Beauty will be convulsive or it will not be at all”
―André Breton, Nadja, 1928
The monochrome Series MISShapes is a critique on the media misrepresentation of the female “social” body in contemporary society. The commercialisation and commoditisation of the female body aided by a proliferation of imagery -particularly in advertising - fragments the body, takes it apart. There is a relentless focus on the body parts; as if identity is defined as being the body. This cult of thinness generates body anxiety which in turn has opened up a market for self-esteem that is being exploited by the image driven mass media. Thus, there is a circularity where women are ‘sold back’ to themselves. The Series MISShapes examines the female “social” body as a landscape of shapes and texture, using UV light as a sculpting tool to transform the recognizable into abstract. These deconstructions create shapes that aim to question the ideals of classical beauty by abstracting the female form into new parts.
“This is a moody and incisive group of images in this selection. I feel like you are exploring some interesting formal questions in this body of work that examine the female body through a lens that feels different than the historical male gaze approach. These deconstructions are creating shapes that push the boundaries of classical beauty and abstract the female form into new parts. My favorite images in this selection are the ones that feel either completely abstract and truly become only about the shapes and the ones that distort the body and challenge an instinct to eroticize the scene. I enjoy that you are denying the viewer the satisfaction of it being what one might want it to be."
— LensCulture Review
"Perez shows "a circularity where women are ‘sold back’ to themselves" in glossy red, like the magazine pages which entice us to believe the unrealistic hype which surrounds the female form in the media. Her critique through female body parts seduce & scare in equal measure."
— Laura Noble, LA Noble Gallery Director
“The glossy surface look suits the slightly fetishistic figures, highlighting both the ‘objectness’ of the body and the seductive dimension of the issues that you have been seeking to address in the work. You have found a way to balance the pleasure and the critique in your body images. You have created a work of fascination but one which interrogates the viewer and seeks to position within the debates around the idealisation of the female body, and the cultural burden and damage it creates”.
— David Bate, Artist, Writer, Co-editor & Co-founder photographies Journal
“Your images are beautiful without being overtly sexy. You are making an abstraction from an ordinary, recognizable form. My favourite abstract work is exactly that, beauty created from the ordinary that is no longer recognizable as the original subject. The photographs you have created appear as abstract sculpture. It is graceful and elegant. The eye travels around a wonderful landscape of shape and texture. If I didn’t know the background of the project I don’t know that I would recognize what the subject actually is.”
— LensCulture Review
The Untitled images from the monochrome Series MISShapes was exhibited at MAPS Degree Show for the successful completion of the MA in Photographic Studies at the University of Westminster, AmbikaP3 Gallery, London, 3-8 Sep 2013. The Degree Show consisting of 27 exhibitors from 17 countries, was professionally curated and designed by Dr. Elizabeth Upper, Researcher University of Cambridge and Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge. The Show was accompanied by a Catalogue featuring essays by Diane Smyth, Deputy Editor British Journal of Photography; David Bate, photo-artist, writer and MAPS Course Leader; Charlotte Cotton, writer and curator; and Sue Steward, writer, broadcaster and independent photography curator.
A selection of images was shown at the Colour Assembly Pop-up Exhibition, sponsored by London Borough of Camden, 10-21 Jan 2017 and at the ECOFeminism Festival, Exhibition Utopia, Art Pavilion, London, 7-17 October 2021, curated, organised, and managed by ART from HEART CIC.
