Alice Hawkins has had her work in some of the most hip and prestigious magazines in the world and has been mentored by Vogue mainstay Nick Knight and uber-cool editor Katie Grand. However, in spite of all the iD, Harpers Bazaar and Pop fashion shoots, Hawkins is still a peroxide-blonde Essex girl at heart who idolises Dolly Parton and has a not-so-secret yearning to become a Vegas Showgirl or appear on Page 3. It is this sincere appreciation of the outrageous and trashy which informs her delicious images and endears the viewer, drawing you into her technicolour reveries. Her new show The Good, The Bad, The Belle at Spring Projects with ceramic sculptor Barnaby Barford presents a sweeping collection of David LaChapelle and Cindy Sherman-influenced photography, that documents the pursuers of aspirational lifestyles from Brighton to Texas, Beverly Hills to India and featuring bears, wolves and Playboy Bunnies.
Hawkins' photos engage in a cathartic narcissism, to the point where she casts herself as a pouty, nipple-baring Page 3 girl. She isn't trying to expose the flaws or critique the extravagance of her subjects, or to attach anything as dull as a philosophy to her images. From portraits of the Girls Next Door with the Playboy mansion parrots and flamingos; to Beth Ditto, demure Russian society ladies and beauty-contest winners, Hawkins' photographs are like singing into a hairbrush – pure unbridled indulgence in sumptuous and ridiculous fantasy. The narratives in her frames turn expectations on their heads and give her subjects an opportunity to slip into a different skin, whether it is an Essex teenager in a ballgown or glamour model Lucy Davies looking demure.
Barnaby Barford's tragic, kitsch ceramics are the ideal foil for Hawkins' work. In his sculptures Royal Doulton trinkets turn to happy slapping, murder and vandalism, making the Franklin Mint hang its head in shame. An eighteenth-century dinner party is strewn with fast food, the three graces wave guns like jacked-up republicans and Santa meets a Daily Mail-concerning demise in Does this mean we won't be getting presents this year. Together Hawkins and Barford create a witty, postmodern repartee with Barford taking the burden of social commentary with a good dollop of irreverence.
The Good, The Bad, The Belle is an all-inclusive beauty pageant – much like the Miss Essex contest Hawkins judges every year – where her sitters, known and unknown, are elevated to iconic status for escapism's sake. Hawkins refreshingly eschews the exclusivity of fashion and celebrity in favour of character. She is the benevolent godmother sprinkling some Cinderella glitter in the shape of Chanel dresses and tiaras. Combined with the adorable bitterness of Barford's sculptures, this is a pitch-perfect show. Lighting up viewers like a tanning bed, and re-awakening that Disney princess in us all, Hawkins shows that a little artificial sweetening can make you look damn good, the only downside being the uncontrollable urge to bouffant your hair and plump up your bosoms as you leave.
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