Questions of identity are explored through self-portrayals where I assume different guises. By injecting myself into settings which originate with window dressing in New York City, I consider how the act of shopping, how fashion, affects how we see ourselves as well as how we think others will view us. After removing objects from the windows, I create a fictional narrative, adding new elements with additional photographs to turn the store window into visionary windows. My aim is to highlight the psychological relationship between what we see and what we imagine. Using my face as a stage, I do makeup on myself and use wigs to offer different looks which inhabit the vacant, perfect, body of the mannequin? In some photographs, I turn myself into characters who are not in the bodies of mannequins but share the narrative with them. I undermine any attempt to fix my image. Exploiting what is theatrically inherent in photographic media, I adopt persona from fairy tales, diverse cultures, and cinematic moments. I catapult myself into the past and future, overturning accepted distinctions between illusion and reality. The point is to fracture the single, solitary sense of self, to propose identity as multiple projections of invented selves.

Lynn Goldsmith

The Looking Glass
September 27 - December 2, 2012
Griffin Museum of Photography
67 Shore Road
Winchester MA 01890
USA