The surrealist movement centred around political objectives; however, artists often ignored gender politics. Though historically dominated by men, female “muses” have always featured as an object of surrealist fantasy. Izabella Scott proposed that “as the female body became the ultimate Surrealist object, it was mystified, fetishised, and othered.” (Scott 2019) Surrealism artists often objectified women’s bodies under the guise of appreciation.

 

Inspired by Jeffrey M. Harps Victoria Surrealism photographs, I’ve pushed this narrative further by literally objectifying a woman’s body. The subjects of Harps’ images are often edited beyond recognition or into a different form completely. I have taken some of the most fetishised parts of a women’s body, the legs and hands, and isolated them from the subject’s identity. My criticism of Surrealism’s fetishisation of muses continues as the series progresses and is compounded by the eerie mood of the images. The human-like objects are removed from the soul of the body; they appear ghostly and unnatural. The solid white cross-sections suggest that the objects are constructed from a solid material, such as plastic or wax, extending their isolation from a human form.