Polly Penrose "Self Portrait as Hercules"

Polly Penrose "Self Portrait as Hercules" 2024

Penrose’s self-portraits explore themes of identity at the intersection of the physical and emotional self, using her own body as both the subject and the medium. She contorts and positions herself in unusual, often precarious ways that challenge traditional representations of the human form.

The environments she chooses, such as abandoned buildings, unfurnished domestic spaces play a significant role. Penrose interacts with these spaces with her body, emphasizing contrast, harmony, or discord between the human form and the spaces it occupies. The atmosphere of her surroundings feed into the work. Her poses often appear uncomfortable, underscoring the idea of adaptation, struggle, or belonging.Often pictured holding a remote, her self-portraits examine the complexity of femininity, presenting the body in raw, candid ways that couple vulnerability with humour, strength with discomfort, encouraging viewers to confront their own perceptions of self. Penrose’s use of her nude body is central to her art. She uses it not for sensuality but as a sculptural and symbolic element, an object or a shape, becoming a linear or lumpen feature in her chosen landscape.

Her pictures are a microcosm of how we fit, fold ourselves, change our shape to squeeze into the myriad of roles we are expected to play.

“In Hercules most notorious labour ‘The killing of the Neaman lion’ he slays the lion by strangling it. It was impossible to kill the lion using weapons because its skin would repel any attack, so Hercules had to rely on his physical strength. Women can not rely on their physical strength to defeat their monsters, they must employ other tactics. Here the artist approaches the labour as a female Hercules. Naked and vulnerable, in an impossible position, she wrestles, embraces, whispers in his ear the reasons she must win. Cold and alone in the Lions lair she clings on to hope and will not give up the fight.” - Polly Penrose