Can You See Me Now
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There was something awkward about the way the woman in Liz Hansen’s photo wearing a cowboy hat & cowboy boots was sitting, legs splayed open with her elbows on her knees and her gauze skirt pushed down between them.
Not a feminine pose, nor a sexual pose, but there was a cockiness being communicated. She clearly had power & she clearly was not a real woman. She was a mannequin representing a woman in a west Texas gift store in the middle of nowhere.
I was immediately drawn to the framed photo in an art gallery, bought it & hung it in my studio. It reminds me of my daughter. It reminds me of me.
The something awkward communicated was that it was not awkward. The image was in control. She was leaning over & letting us know she didn’t care about our interpretation of her pose. That we might have thought her unladylike & not in control. It was the exact opposite.
She knew exactly what she was doing, saying, communicating, which means the shopkeeper who arranged the pose in front of the large glass window in a storefront in a mediocre size Texas town knew exactly what she was doing. Knew what the female mannequin was saying & I imagine, she knew who she was saying it to. I imagine the shopkeeper was saying, Can you see me now?
This means the photographer who took the photo also knew what was being said & was leaving interpretation open to the viewer.
It’s a very risque, very sexy photo & nobody who I’ve ever seen look at the photo says anything – no comment. Which may be what the shopkeeper, the mannequin & the photographer intended in the first place. Splayed open in the storefront window, downtown, in the middle of nowhere.
