Gallery Nine5 presents an exhibition by Sali Taylor.

A waifish model stalking down a catwalk made of Venus de Miloes; figures from Botticelli’s Primavera posing with Greek Amagos Icons and voluptuous beer spokesmodels; a thermal camera image of Scarlett Johansson, Suri Cruise and a Disney Princess. Sali Taylor’s wit manifests itself in the clever juxtaposition of over five thousand years of feminine iconography. Drawing images from the Cycladic period to contemporary pop culture, Taylor possesses a visual lexicon that is both sophisticated and inexhaustible in scope.

Her work investigates the paradoxes inherent in contemporary attitudes towards women, particularly the expectation for women to be simultaneously femme fatale and feminist, competitive and compliant, sinner and saint.

“My work is an intuitive response to the fashion industry, which is very much part of my environment in New York City. My studio is in the epicenter of the fashion district in midtown Manhattan, so I am surrounded by fashion’s values and feel compelled to respond to them”.

The use of collage and digital manipulation further highlights the constructed and artificial nature of the compiled images. Describing herself as a ‘fauxtographer’, Taylor manipulates pictures drawn from fashion and weekly magazines, consumer culture, in addition to images drawn from canonical art works.