Cindy Sherman works with female stereotypes and invents personas and tableaus that identify the nature of females. She does this by creating images that assumes gender roles like a photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser and stylist. Whilst also portraying a career girl, a blond bombshell, a fashion victim, a clown, or a society lady of a certain age. For over 35 years she created eloquent and provocative body of work for our visual culture.

Sherman’s photography is a depiction of the different ways culture defines “woman.” Her art plays on the feminist idea that gender arises exclusively within culture and deconstructs dominant gender ideologies, representing the underside of popular culture’s definition of “woman.”

She rose to fame in the international art world with her series of black-and-white photographs, “Untitled Film Stills” (1977–80), which advanced the concept of narrative photography. 

Renowned for her depictions of female stereotypes, Sherman has played with masculinity and gender expression before. In a series referred to as “Doctor and Nurse,” Sherman became both a male and female character, embodying stereotypical mid-century professional archetypes.