Monuments.

2018–2024 (completed)

Monuments is a photographic series that rethinks how the female body is shown. Instead of repeating familiar images of softness or idealised beauty, the work focuses on strength, presence, and individuality. As the project text states, the series “reimagines the representation of the female body, framing it as a structure of strength, presence, and individuality.”

The work draws on research into 19th‑century French sculpture, where women were often shown as fragile or dependent. “My research into 19th‑century French monuments revealed persistent visual patterns of women portrayed imploring, mourning, kneeling, or gazing upward.”

Monuments responds by offering images built around power, self‑possession, and refusal of passive beauty.

The photographs were made in a simple garage studio using minimal equipment. This stripped‑back setting keeps attention on the body and the relationship between photographer and subject. As Hannah Tasker‑Poland notes, “it brings the energy and focus right back to the source, the photographer, the subject, and the creative relationship between them.”

The process was collaborative from the start. Subjects were treated as co‑authors, shaping the images through conversation, trust, and shared decision‑making. “My collaborators…are not merely participants but co‑authors of the visual narrative.”

Reviewers have recognised the work for shifting how the nude is viewed. One LensCulture comment noted that the images “de‑objectify the experience of looking at the nude form,” allowing the viewer to focus on “the light, the line and the shapes.”

Completed in 2024, Monuments stands as a finished body of work exploring power, gaze, and the politics of representation with clarity and care.