Stenram deliberately focuses on the lower body or arms while removing the reciprocal gaze from the subject by veiling the head and torso. Through the impossibility of eye contact we are free to leer, unmediated as voyeurs. We can survey the details in each image unencumbered by conscious relations or responsibility to the other, thereby objectifying the body and the potential for fetishism. Simple graphic and inanimate hands, feet, ankles become more tantalising when isolated for examination.

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Vintage, pin-up photos are the inspiration and direct material for the series, the title of which, Drape, interprets the work in relation to the subjects in the images – the women who literally drape themselves around the set but also in terms of the curtains that conceal them. All of the images are subtle,black and white interiors shot in a similar style with each woman, or so we assume, positioned in front of a window. The artist’s intervention in the image is to extend the curtains to conceal the head and torso. The images remind me in someway of certain works by Louise Bourgeois, namely the disaggregation of body parts, controlling the material and the information that is exposed. They especially recall her drawings where she would combine half woman-half house, a birdcage with legs and so on.

Born in Sweden, Eva Stenram studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal College of Art. She has exhibited internationally, including shows at the V&A Museum, Zendai Museum of Modern Art (China), Museum of Contemporary Art Teipei (Taiwan), Seoul Museum of Art (South Korea) and Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum (India). Her work has featured in several magazines including Architectural Review, Blueprint, Source, Succour and The New Statesman. Eva Stenram worked as a lecturer in Fine Art, Photography and Video Art at the University of Bedfordshire from 2006-2010 and has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Creative Arts, Derby University, Glasgow School of Art, Southampton Institute and the Arts Institute at Bournemouth.