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From the Black and White close-up selfportraits in 1994 to the 1998- 2002 series “On Art, Beauty and Persuasion ” and the more recent "Standards of Beauty" I have continually explored the issue of female identity and influence from mass media and popular western cultural ideas; this exploration has taken several forms: magazine covers, paperdolls, postcards as well as the recent series relating to the Barbie doll. Our earliest influences are the toys we play with, which brought me to the influences from my childhood, namely paper dolls and Barbies. I am interested in what the dolls represent as re-presentations of humans/women and in terms of toys, since they are our earliest role models outside our immediate world.

The notion that photography seemingly tells truths or represents reality is flawed, although we know that not everything we see is real or truth, we often forget to examine visual materials for their true content. In my work I examine and interpret visually how the values of popular culture, especially women’s magazines, fashion and toys, play a part in our lives. By styling an ordinary looking woman, in this case myself, and making her into a doll or placing her into the world of Barbie© I hope to challenge the idea of the beauty as perfection as well as the shallow portrayal of identity.

In On Art, Beauty and Persuasion/ A Magazine is Not a Mirror, text and images are positioned to create a slight dissonance in what appears to be an ordinary magazine cover. I examine these textual and imagistic similarities, as well as the values that the media persuade us to buy in an effort to portray and understand them better.

Our earliest influences are the toys we play with, which brought me to the influences from my childhood, namely paper dolls and Barbies. "On Art, Beauty and Persuasion/You’re Such a Doll" I am interested in what the dolls represent as re-presentations of humans/women and in terms of toys, since they are our earliest role models outside our immediate world. I am examining the roles, through representative clothes, of females today and in the past. To date I have made dolls representing 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, 2000’s as well as a futuristic version.

Barbie©, the toy that influence my childhood and was the ideal of beauty is an odd combination of measurements and proportions. If the standard of beauty was Barbie©, how do we compare? A photo-surgery alters the proportions and measurements of the human to measure up to Barbie© and exaggerates or magnifies the Barbie standards of beauty. The dissonance between the human woman and Barbie© and Barbie’s world is enhanced and the notion of surgery (real or photographic) is explored. Barbie© is a toy and in some ways a myth of beauty and perfection. The series "Standards of Beauty: Like Barbie” explores visual measurement and standards of the human form as represented by Barbie© and a real life woman.

Every true illusionist must deal with realities,
every woman learn to let her gaze glaze over
to not be fooled by a mirror image.

I can see that you think I have seen through the image
but don't be too sure.
We have all been trained to disguise ourselves,
to cover up the inconvenience to fit in.

So we constantly exceed each other in disguises,
while we seek for something that may have been lost.
I can see that it is hard for you to believe me, when I say
This is not I.
Still: in all this am I.

So you have lent yourself to the image of someone else
to see how close to yourself you can come
and how far away from yourself you can go.

Poem by TINA PERSSON
written in contemplation of “On Art, Beauty and Persuasion”
for the För Mycket exhibition catalogue 1999 –2000.