Revisioning the Gendered Eye in Landscape Photography
by Colette Copeland
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When Ginger Sisco-Cook first asked me to write this essay about the female eye within landscape photography, I wasn’t sure that I could make a compelling argument supporting the gendered gaze in 2018. In re-reading Deborah Bright’s iconic 1985 essay, Of Mother Nature & Marlboro Men, I wondered if 33 years later Bright’s suppositions would still hold true. The cultural myths of the landscape as “unsullied wilderness” and the visually sublime still prevail. In the Southwest, especially Texas, the cowboy still reigns as a powerful masculine archetype. And while I don’t disagree that knowing a photographer’s gender influences the reading of the image, I wondered if it should still matter.
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About Colette |
Colette Copeland is a multi-media visual artist and cultural critic/writer whose work examines issues surrounding gender, death and contemporary culture. Sourcing personal narratives and popular media, she utilizes video, photography, performance and sculptural installation to question societal roles and the pervasive influence of media, and technology on our communal enculturation.
Over the past 22 years, her work has been exhibited in 26 solo exhibitions and 122 group exhibitions/festivals spanning 34 countries. She teaches art and digital media at University of Texas and Collin College in Dallas, Texas as well as writes for Glasstire and Eutopia publications. She proudly admits to being a Texas convert and revels in the magical diversity of the Texas landscape. She has been known to fall down on her knees in the presence of a majestic Texas sky. Website: www.colettecopeland.com Email: colettemedia@aol.com Instagram: colettemedia Other: https://vimeo.com/user8477735 |