Yvonne Todd, Valley Candle, 2008
Courtesy of the artist and the University of Auckland
One of New Zealand’s most exciting contemporary photographers Yvonne Todd has taken up an invitation by University of Waikato Art Curator Karl Chitham to curate her own exhibition – the next show at the Calder & Lawson Gallery at the University of Waikato.
“Expect to feel uneasy looking at some of the photos,” says Chitham. “She takes familiar subjects and makes them feel slightly creepy.”
Exhibition Collection
There are 15 works in the exhibition, all completed between 2002 and 2010. The show is titled Self-medicating, and has a range of subjects that Todd has focussed on over that time including sinister looking buildings, dislocated footwear and a collection of strange characters from dolled-up pubescent girls to sleazy looking doctors.
Wigs and Costumes
Todd likes wigs and costumes and her models are seldom without them. She likes the way costumes are tied to history, how they carry the character. She trawls internet and buys from sites that specialise in celebrity memorabilia, vintage couture and antique textiles.
“And her models are often found through newspaper classifieds, with little experience of posing for the camera,” says Chitham. “It’s easy to look at some of the works and dismiss them as cliché, but to my mind she takes these stereotypes from popular culture and skews them, and that makes the image uncertain.”
Awards and Prizes
Yvonne Todd, who lives and works in Auckland, was the inaugural winner of the Walter Prize in 2002 worth $50,000. She has since gone on to have a successful career in New Zealand and overseas.
“This is a really ambitious and exciting project for the University of Waikato to be involved in,” says Chitham.
The Self-medicating exhibition is a partnership project between the University of Waikato and University of Auckland and runs from 13 August until 25 September.