Jo Sutton

joannemsutton@yahoo.com 07964586471

Portrait of an Unknown Woman

By her utter wickedness of will she has poured dishonour both on herself and on every woman that lives hereafter, even on one whose deeds are virtuous.Excerpt from The Odyssey, Homer

A myth may be a fantasy or a product of the imagination, but it is nonetheless true and real. It depicts levels of reality that include the outer rational world as well as the less understood inner world.

Excerpt from She: Understanding Feminine Psychology

The femme fatale resides in all mythology. It is Odyssian mythology and the immortal words of Homer however, that inspired Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The attributions of such mythological figures are still accredited in the psychological characteristics of modern woman, prescribing the innate nature of her femininity, perceived as a seducer of men and mankind to be treated with caution and concern, by men and women alike. Little is known about these women. Their faces loom out of a darkness that surrounds them. Their facial expression unbecoming and confrontational is purposefully saturated with a red hue, a colour, that not unlike their expression is capable of affecting a strong emotional reaction in the viewer; her expression, condemning those who choose to condemn her in their judgement. This is more a psychological experiment than a photographic project, and as such, is less about my definition of the subject and her presentation than the your reaction and interpretation. Large inferences are drawn from small details. I am relying here on the viewer’s ability to draw such inferences from the knowledge they garner from these portraits. Openly vulnerable to interpretation, this photographic project duplicates the ambiguity that surrounds the representation of women yet, where Odysseus ultimately returns home to seek his retribution, the representation of women is denied its return to equilibrium.