Cecil B is a Belgian photographer, self-taught and she works mainly in self-portraiture. I found her work on LensCulture a few days ago and was quite astounded at the size of the oevre – 183 images and all self portraits!
Her work is very varied. Sometimes the self portraits are self absented, other times they are abstracted. I found some of her work had echoes of Francesca Woodman’s work, using mirrors in the same manner as Woodman and even striking the same poses. Strangely though her work doesn’t have the same negative or distrubed feel to it that Woodman’s does. I really enjoy looking at Cecil B’s work. My favourite sets were probably message-personnel and the autres series.
Her work is exploratory and youthful. She uses various techniques to create her self portraits like slow shutter speed to blur her movements; places herself in landscapes and even uses post-it stickers on her body in similar fashion to Elina Brotherus. She also uses collages combing her body parts with those of various animals in a clever and sometimes comical manner. She uses shadows and reflections most effectively. She conveys her sense of joie de vivre through her photography extremely well. There were a few series that she did that were more serious. Her series on Death, I think, fell a little short. For me some of the images could have been left out to create a tighter, more emotional oevre, but on the whole she did succeed in conveying her message of sadness to me.
Definitely someone to study in greater depth.
Reference List
Elina Brotherus [online] Available from: http://www.elinabrotherus.com/photography/index.php [Accessed 24 November, 2015]
Cecil B Art Photography [online]. Available from: http://www.cecilb-photography.com/ [Accessed 24 November, 2015]
Francesca Woodman 1958 – 1981 [online] Tate. Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesca-woodman-10512 [Accessed 24 November, 2015]
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