HIPPOLYTE STUDIO
Yrjönkatu 8–10 (courtyard), 00120 Helsinki, Finland, +358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Open: Mon–Fri 12–17, Sat–Sun closed

4 July – 2 August 2013
DAWN WOOLLEY
Visual Pleasure

Visual Pleasure brings together a selection of photographs from three recent bodies of work – The Substitute, Interloper and Visual Pleasure. All of the works explore notions of visibility, illusion, idealization and desire through the depiction of the female body. This exhibition seeks to draw out visual motifs that run through the artists work, accentuating ideas of the fragmented body, the close-up and the body as fetish. The idea of the pin-up is reinforced by pinning the photographs directly to the wall.

Woolley’s artwork forms an enquiry into the act of looking and being looked at. Referring to psychoanalysis, phenomenology and feminism she examines her own experience of becoming an object of sight and also considers the experience the viewer has when looking at her as a female, and a photographic object. Voyeurism and exhibitionism intertwine as she attempts to disrupt relationships of power in purposefully provocative scenes.

Dawn Woolley initially trained as a fine art printmaker, but has since developed a photography-based practice that encompasses digital video, performance and installations. In 2008 she completed an MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art. In the spring of 2008 she undertook a three month studio residency at Cité des Arts in Paris.

Dawn Woolley currently lives and works in Cardiff, UK and is a photography lecturer at Bridgend College. She is co-director of the curatorial project Another Product, which she founded with James Moore in 2003.

Dawn Woolley, The Substitute (holiday)