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Exhibition

In today's highly visual society, one has to ask, what exactly makes for a real woman? With the help of advertising and mass media influenced thought, more often than not women are judged and categorised by society's perception of beauty, fashion sensibility, sexuality and sexual preference, career success, maturity, self worth and past stereotyped expectations. In this exhibition I present these varied and debatable aspects for you to reflect on. Real women presented as unreal women. What makes a real woman? What should we all believe?

360 degrees

Realwomen on the walls

Realwomen print sales

A selection of the realwomen exhibition prints are for sale through Gallery 82. Prints can also be bought direct via this website.

Gallery 82
82 King William Street, Hyde Park
South Australia, 5061
http://www.g82.com.au/

If you are interested in having a showing of the realwomen exhibition at your gallery, please contact me to discuss.

John Cerlienco - Realwomen exhibition opening speech

When Brent first asked me if I would open the show for him, I was delighted, but, when I asked him what the show would be called and he uttered the words "real women" I realised immediately that controversy could follow.

Not because Brent has set out to be controversial, but because the term "real women" would have diverse meanings to each and every one of us.

This is of course a fact, as the term will give rise to a deep seated meaning within each individual psyche, dependent on their gender, sexual, cultural and religious orientation and more importantly the sum of their individual experiences.

So how do we classify "real women"?

I guess that I can only look at it from my perspective. When I asked myself the question how would I categorize a "real woman" many questions came to mind.

Would a "real woman" be a mother figure? a sister figure? a lover? a woman in her prime? a strikingly beautiful woman? realising of course that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or the woman you meet inadverently whilst walking down the street.

In today's society of visually orientated mass media, we are led to believe in a false sense of expectation.

The media feeds us with the perception thet "real women" are fashionalble, beautiful, sexually mature, sensual and career orientated with an infinite degree of self discipline whilst being able to tackle diverse situations with the utmost ease.

I guess that my perception of a "real woman" is at odds with this media perception, as I feel that a "real woman" is one who has difficulty in their relationships, their weight, their shape, their looks, their job and life in general.

There is nothing wrong with that! women's preconceptions seem to be based on stereotyped expectations that fit into the category of urban myth.

I feel that "real women" should feel at ease with their looks, their vulnerabilities (if they have any of course), and their sense of responsibility, whilst being comfortably arbitery in any relationship.

Now, when I asked Brent what he considered a "real woman" to be, he uttered the words, an "unreal woman".

This is because his theory and focus for the whole exhibition has been in taking real women and turning them into stereotyped beings as we are led to beleive by mass media hype, society's perception of beauty, fashion, sensibility, sexual pereference, maturity, self worth, sexuality and career success.

Every image you see in this exhibition has been distilled from the expansion of reality to the point of crasness, taking the real to a state of metamorphism, where real women change into what we are led to believe are real!

Brent takes his concept even further, where he has conceptionalised imaginary urban characters to the point of reality by the use of innovative photographic and photoshopping techniques.

He further expands his concepts by celebrating his photographic predecessors and peers by cleverly expanding on their known techniques and imagery creating images that they would be proud to call their own.

Brent's innovative and technically proficient techniques make him a figure entrenched in the innovative future of imagery.

So, if you find an image that calls out to you and makes you stir in heart and soul, make sure that you take it home, because as we all know "real women" are very hard to find!

SPOV video footage

The below videos have been shot SPOV (Steve Davis point of view) at the opening of the realwomen exhibition, on sunglass cameras kindly donated by the lads at EDUPOV.

Exhibition walk through

Exhibition speeches + interviews

It's always interesting to see who of those that view my work get the concept and intention behind the realwomen project, and those who miss the point entirely. The process of on-the-spot feedback has certainly added some insight into the minds of those that attended, both for me, and you viewing the footage after the event itself.

The realwomen exhibition was opened on
Friday 20 March to Thursday 09 April 2009

Adelaide Central Gallery
http://www.acsa.sa.edu.au/

Opening night photos

The following links will take you to galleries from different photographers on the night.