(2004-03-01)

“Like delicate ghostly traces, the bags and purses depicted in Joy Gregory’s seductively beautiful photograms appear to be simultaneously coming into focus and fading from view. While we are initially drawn to the beauty of the images, these exquisite and seemingly innocent objects take on a deeper and more disturbing significance when we learn that they were found by the artist in Johannesburg charity shops and had belonged to wealthy white South African women during the apartheid years. Silken, fringed and beaded, these once treasured possessions become potent symbols of privilege, power and a particular form of femininity.” Excerpt from essay in We Are The Camera © Rohini Malik-Okon