Joanna Piotrowska: Domestic Scenes

The image above I find particularly powerful. There is something so fragile about the women and so harsh about the man. The way in which she lays across him looks so uncomfortable, and the fact he appears naked and looks unashamed into the lens adds to the sinister feel of the work. The power balance between these two individuals is very apparent in this image.

The image above is another of my favourites, there is something so simple yet so harrowing about the woman’s position, as her arms and hair hang down it is almost as if she is a piece of meat hanging from a hook. The domestic space places her somewhere she should feel comfortable, however her discomfort and lack of safety are beautifully represented in her body language.

This series by Joanna Piotrowska illustrates the issues in modern domestic scenes. By placing the subjects in a domestic setting she has given the images context, making them feel like documentary style portraits that could be showing real events. She has also made the images look filmic, with an ongoing narrative of the individuals behind the images making the viewer want to learn more about these situations they are in. The way in which she has used physical contact between the subjects is a very interesting way to demonstrate the issues. In an article by Hettie Judah, Judah describes the people in the images as ‘weirdly disengaged’ due to their odd body language and facial expressions. This is key in making the images uncomfortable and disconcerting, which represents the discomfort in issues such as domestic abuse. I personally feel that the images are very powerful, there is an unusual sense of aggression running through all of the images, despite having no aggressive contact, the physical contact the subjects do have feels strained and tense. I take a lot of inspiration from these images, as I am currently exploring the theme of physical contact. While the issues I have covering are not as heavy as domestic abuse, I feel that there are aspects of the discomfort of physical contact that are relevant for my work, particularly in themes of control and dominance.