Polly Penrose: The Anatomy of a Woman As Subject and Medium

Freshly disturbed dust at the base of a fireplace, blossoming bruises, and dirtied feet; subtle hints to the debilitating process of Polly Penrose’s enthralling self-portraits reveal themselves. Inventive and determined, Penrose’s serendipitous practice presents her body’s response to abandoned environments and objects, organically collating a conversation between herself and a space which sees the forgotten become fleetingly reanimated.

Entertaining themes of temporality, Penrose’s photographs speak not only of the decay of neglected buildings and the story behind each shoot, but of moments within her life. Whilst generally unmediated, each self portrait becomes a documentation of Penrose’s concurrent emotional state, almost like diary entries, rendered through her body language and interaction with space.

How did you come to use yourself as subject matter within your work?

I was taking pictures in my stepfather’s factory, I’d always loved all the colour and shape of the machines in there. As I was taking the pictures I thought how wonderful it would be to photograph a nude against all the hard angles and textures – and I was the only human form available. It was a challenge to not make a very obvious ‘feminine form in a masculine environment’ picture that we’ve all seen before. I had to be inventive and thus a project was born.

This is an extract from the full feature in After Nyne: The Eve of the Avant Garde. Get your copy from our Store