Concrete Playground

Mimi Kelly's works linger in your mind. Combining a gorgeous subject, a glossy fashion aesthetic, slasher movie gore and silver-lined photographic paper, these New Works imprint in subtle ways. Kelly has said that she is fascinated with death, annoyed by those prime-time crime shows but oddly still drawn to them. It is here, at the intersection of fashion photography and pornography, that Kelly finds her creative locus.

These images, seductively displayed in the sanctum-like Gallery 2 at GRANTPIRRIE, present us with ordinary soft-porn pin-up scenarios that are then hijacked and railroaded by severed limbs and dripping blood. But the model (Kelly herself) seems not to mind, she carries on holding the pose and we are left not knowing what to think — admiration / arousal / disgust? Or all three? The way Kelly creates these uncomfortable images also sets up a unique balance, as she is really more of a conceptual artist who delegates the photographing to someone "who's got the technical knowledge", in this case Dan Freene. Freene and Kelly work together symbiotically, borrowing poses and themes from fashion shoots and improvising as they go. In an artist talk for NOTFAIR, an art fair held recently in Melbourne, they joke about visiting a butcher to get an idea of what the inside of a human leg would look like. This, along with comments Kelly has made about feeling removed from seeing her blown-up image, paint the photos as just about as processed and refined as fashion imagery, and probably more so than porn. But, unlike fashion and porn, it's not immediately recognisable what Kelly is selling. The dripping blood — a symbol of what belongs inside coming out and more widely the exposing of taboos — is perhaps what she's peddling, and although it's something we all already have, you find yourself wanting more.

Image: Mimi Kelly: Untitled #6, 2010