Clare Rae is an artist works in Melbourne, Australia. She acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups on whose unceded lands she lives and works. She respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present.
In her photographic practice Clare explores ideas of performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of subjectivity and the female body, usually the artists’ own.
Clare Rae engages photography, stop motion animation and performance to navigate and defy the limitations of the everyday environments she inhabits. Her works explore tension, portraying situations that offer alternative spatial and psychological interactions between the artist and the possibilities that are held in her surrounds.
Clare Rae’s aim through her photography is to subvert the dominant ways that we depict women’s subjectivity by getting various women to pose in weird, unnatural poses that goes against the stereotype of women having to look good and act in a certain way. Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of the female body.
Clare Rae Inspired Photoshoot:
For this photoshoot, I went around school and took pictures of Liv in various awkward poses. She wore a flowy dress as many of Clare Rae’s images include a women wearing a skirt or dress and I wanted to recreate her images as closely as possible. I think this photoshoot successfully captured her in a way that goes against the typical stereotype of women where they’re expected to look put together and act in a certain way.
One thing I would improve next time is the lighting as some of the images are very dark which makes it harder to see the model. This is the complete opposite to Clare Rae’s work as she has good, bright lighting. Additionally, Clare Rae’s image typically include a white background or backgrounds that have quite a lot of negative space. However, my backgrounds are quite cluttered which takes away the attention from the model.
