Artist explores curse of the cover girl

A visual arts student is uncovering what lies beneath the glossy covers of magazines for her upcoming honours exhibition at Charles Darwin University.

Elizabeth Grylls said she was motivated to explore the ways magazines manipulated photos and promoted unachievable body expectations so that her young daughter would one day understand the issue.

Elizabeth has created a series of brightly coloured mock magazine posters brandishing text and images that have been published in popular magazines for her exhibition, titled “We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking”.

“I want to let my daughter know that what you see in magazines is not always real,” she said.

“I want her to grow up to be a critical thinker.”

Elizabeth has challenged the traditional layout of a magazine cover by photographing magazine images of fashion models and placing them in unconventional positions on the posters. Some of these images have barcodes stamped on their foreheads or duct tape crossing out their faces.

She described the posters as “subversive magazine covers” because they aimed to expose the ways many mainstream fashion and celebrity magazines influenced their readers.

“The expectations of magazines are unachievable because they contradict themselves by wanting everyone to conform and look the same, but also to look unique or different,” she said.

Elizabeth said visitors could bring their own magazines to add to a pile of magazines on display as part of the exhibition.

“People are welcome to free themselves from any body concerns they might have by placing a magazine on to the pile at the exhibition opening,” she said.

The exhibition will open at the Nan Giese Gallery at Casuarina campus on Friday, 30 October and will open by appointment until Thursday, 5 November by contacting Liz at E: lizgrylls29@gmail.com