The project was inspired by the failures and bugs in the popular beauty apps where natural bodies get distorted. While the Internet can seem like a place disconnected from the physical world, much of the activity that occurs there deeply affects how we feel outside of it. In the age of social media, technology provides women with tools that allow them to quickly create dream digital images of themselves. Using various beauty applications, they can smooth, contour their faces, whiten their teeth, add a few centimeters of height, enlarge their eyes, choose different mouths, and use many other options.
Digitally edited images can serve as aspirational fantasies and, occasionally, they even can have a positive impact – when they are just effects of joyful entertainment. But can the game in which your body is a battleground be truly enjoyable? The phrase from Barbara Kruger’s iconic work has just as much resonance today as it did more than a quarter of a century ago.
While preparing the project, I used photography as the starting point alongside digital tools to create an expressive project that is both a critique and a celebration of the ongoing progress in contemporary technology and culture. I employed many methods of creating images: preparing three-dimensional collages constructed from free stock images and my portraits, photographing the scenes, printing in large sizes, physically manipulating prints, and digitally editing selected photos. In the final work, I tried to leave visible traces of digital processing, partly revealing my working methods to provoke discussion about contemporary photography.
ABOUT ARTIST
Ewa Doroszenko is a Warsaw-based artist whose creative practice employs a mixture of painting, photography and digital media. She earned a Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. In her current works, she deals with contemporary issues, especially the meaning of the image in technological reality and the fluidity of feminine beauty standards. Doroszenko is a scholarship holder from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland (2019) and a winner of many international competitions, including Competition for the Fait Gallery (2016); Young Lynxes Portfolio Competition – Contemporary Lynx (2018); DEBUTS 2018 – doc! photo magazine (2018); Debut – Lithuanian Photographers Association (2018). Ewa Doroszenko presented her works in numerous venues, among others: Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun, Historic Centre of Athens, Vilnius Photography Gallery, MAH – Museum of Angra do Heroismo on the Azores, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in Vancouver, Fait Gallery in Brno, Exgirlfriend Gallery in Berlin, FIESP Cultural Center – Ruth Cardoso in Sao Paulo.
CREDITS
Artwork / Ewa Doroszenko
Body Editor is an ongoing photographic project, check it out in full here: http://ewa-doroszenko.com/bodyeditor
