WOMANHOURS

TYLER PAYNE

Australia 2016

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF SOCIETAL BEAUTY IDEALS ON THE INDIVIDUAL?

Womanhours investigates women’s grooming practices including Brazilian waxing and fake tanning, and asks how these practices have contributed to, and transformed, the social construction of women’s identity. This group of practices, popularised in recent decades, has become part of women’s everyday experience. Their normalisation, or rather, the normalisation of their effects on the appearance of the body has established a strong cultural expectation toward their performance. The aim of Womanhours is to turn the power of the lens against itself so that the tasks of plucking, waxing, purging and retouching, usually hidden from view, are presented for all to see. The labour processes of such ‘improvements’ are documented so that their effects on the female body are de-fetishised. Are such ‘improvements’ aiming for impossible perfectionism? And what’s the psychology behind our desire for a flawless self?

ABOUT

Tyler Payne focuses on the genre of self-portraiture in photography and video to investigate the relationship of women’s embodiment through the lens used in gendered advertising. Her practice concentrates on a study of the recent popularisation of a range of female cosmetic rituals. She analyses, re-enacts and documents how these rituals of bodily transformation have reconfigured the social construction of female gender. Tyler is currently a Ph.D. candidate at RMIT University.

CONNECT

Website: tylerpayne.com.au

Instagram: @tybetch

Twitter: @tybetch