Diana-Nicole, Nicole-Diana 2002
four panel c-prints
Diana-Nicole, Nicole-Diana is a grouping of four photographs that illustrate variables in a standard three-quarter portrait pose. In each of the photos a blonde and a brunette women pose side by side and done stoic expressions. They wear identical gray turtlenecks with the names Diana or Nicole across their torsos. Though the four photographs first appear as mirrored images of one another, they are in fact four individual images.
Diana-Nicole, Nicole-Diana plays with name and face recognition. It explores issues of hierarchy and ranking through the order of reading a visual image left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top. The images engage in the age-old power argument between the roles of the blonde and the brunette. The question of ‘Who is Diana?’ and ‘Who is Nicole?’ is left unanswered. Through the visual information in the photograph the names are interchangeable. The question loops to become a repeated action.
all images © Diana Shpungin & Nicole Engelmann 2000-2007
Diana-Nicole, Nicole-Diana plays with name and face recognition. It explores issues of hierarchy and ranking through the order of reading a visual image left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top. The images engage in the age-old power argument between the roles of the blonde and the brunette. The question of ‘Who is Diana?’ and ‘Who is Nicole?’ is left unanswered. Through the visual information in the photograph the names are interchangeable. The question loops to become a repeated action.
all images © Diana Shpungin & Nicole Engelmann 2000-2007