The Swedish-born Eva Stenram calls herself “an artist who works with photographs”. Her source materials are photographs found in (vintage) magazines, on the Internet or from family photo albums that she digitally manipulates – leading to bizarre and arresting images.
The series ‘Drape’ consists of a mixture of black & white and colour images; vintage pin-up photos of women who had been photographed in front of an interior curtain or drape. Stenram digitally extended the curtains to conceal the head and the naked torso, whilst the legs and arms are still shown.
Through Stenram’s alterations, the natural pin-up poses become unnatural and even funny as we see strange limbs sticking out from behind the drape. In some images, the drape forms the shape of a pleated skirt. By covering the women with a drape, the photographs become more erotically charged than the original exposed pinups, as we can let our imagination run free about the naked bodies behind the curtain.
A curtain is used to protect our privacy, a barrier between public and private space, but in Stenram’s erotic images, it serves as a wall behind which thoughts can be kept private. We can gaze unashamedly and become a voyeur just like the protagonist in the film ‘Body Double’, who peeps, each night, at his female neighbour with a telescope.
“I was interested in blocking out the main areas of interest in the image – making the focal point of the image disappear and instead making the background engulf the foreground,” says Stenram about her intentions behind ‘Drape’, adding, “Although the model is covered, she still manages to tease the viewer into looking at the picture and paying attention.”
Limited edition box set of 4 / each box contains a set of 7 prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper / each print is attached to a passepartout board format
