Beauty, and its other

ARTWALK

Suellen Parker is a multi-media acrobat. Her new show at New York's Stux Gallery, "Incurable Still", is proof of that. Her performances begin in the manner of an ancient sculptor using clay (a plasterline clay that never solidifies, so it can develop loose jawlines and sagging skin like the people it is shaped into), basing the figures on real people.

Then, she photographs them and throws them into a Photoshop makeover session. They are given features from images of real people and set in backgrounds created from other photographs.

Then, she photographs them and throws them into a Photoshop makeover session. They are given features from images of real people and set in backgrounds created from other photographs.

Then again, using Photoshop, she paints them over. What is incredible is how seamless each process is. You don't see the rough ends. She simply tucks and folds each end in, giving you only that one striking image with no unfinished edges.

As in her previous works, Suellen explores the imposed and willing burden of staying eternally young. No wrinkles, no lines, no ageing process "" these have become our collective ambitions today. Suellen Parker unpeels the layers that build up to our obsession with beating time.

In the current series, you have diverse aspirations. A man struggling to keep his muscles rippling, bent backwards on a Bosu ball. A older, cellulitic, wobbly-legged woman sunbathing in her porch, covered in a one-piece swimsuit. She stretches like a model, instantly feeling younger (one presumes). And so on.

The artistic process bears striking similarities with the physical process of beautification we know. The massages delivered by a masseuse is akin to sculpting plastercine; the lasering away of spots and imperfections, the Botox that irons out the visual image is, after all, Photoshop real time.

While Suellen is working on her computers, hundreds are having their bodies examined on screens for cosmetic modification. While Suellen colours her "characters", the dissatisfied scour drug stores to find their perfect make-up match "" light-medium-fair. The clay-like bodies in the final works remain knotty and uneven.

They were Photoshopped, so they could have been air brushed into perfection. As lifeless photographs, at least, they could have lived their dreams. Yet, Suellen denies them this technological gratification.

She uses her skills to allow age and the natural processes that go with it to triumph over beauty technology. The ends and the means confront each other in a flash of artistic panache.

(bharati@chintan-india.org)