Sez Le Pie is a painter, photographer, illustrator and a performance artist. She creates works within installation and graphic design, as well as testing her skills in the vast and current world of digital media...which is what iPortrait is all about.
Each photograph within the show features a character which Sez created. Conceptually her aim was to explore the facades people create on social networking forums, such as Facebook. Being the entrepreneur that she is, Sez also incorporated a sort of installation by projecting her Facebook page onto the gallery wall. Arthive visitors could access this page and post things digitally on the gallery wall.
On concept. Often people adopt facades and reveal only a fragment of themselves, sort of like inventing a new character. I wanted my work to capture the kind of secrecy that Facebook allows people to have when presenting themselves to the world (in the web sense). My university Masters work was based around storytelling and the narrative within fairytales so the idea of role play/performance/narrative tends to be a persistent theme within my work.
On lighting. The consistent lighting scheme was mainly a product of the program I used to shoot the images with, however I did encourage some of my models to choose certain colours so there was a consistency once the works were all installed together.
On installations. I'm most passionate about large scale installations (probably for the challenge of it!). Unfortunately it can be quite expensive and difficult to find the space to make/install the works and often involves a whole team of people to help with the specialty skills I often require, so my passion is not neccessarily what is most accesible!
On interaction. The most important aspect of my work at present is to try and break down some barriers between artist/art and audience. I love watching people become involved with my work, either digitally through technology, as in iPortrait with an interactive facebook page, or as in previous works, where the audience is encouraged to touch, or needs to physically move around within the artwork.
On the art scene. I take my practise seriously but I believe art and the art 'scene' can often be a bit of a wank. I want to make art that is accessible for anyone who comes to see my work and that it is totally ok, if not preferable, to just have a bit of fun with it and hopefully create dialogue with the audience.
