Drop Dead Gorgeous

Your photos also look like advertisements where something has gone terribly wrong. How does your work reference advertising?

I guess the presence of the brand is what turns [an image] into an advertisement. It is inevitable to [look at this work and] think back to images in television or magazines. I think if you actually slapped a slogan on top of it would even work.

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Your Drop Dead Gorgeous series reminds me of some horror films and thrillers featuring women—Carrie, the Stepford Wives, Basic Instinct, Rosemary’s Baby—have any films or scenes influenced your work?

Death by Bananas is an almost direct reference to Hitchcock’s The Birds. For Death by Cotton Candy I watched the Wizard of Oz, many times. I love the tornado scene. The first picture I did that was more referential to film than to painting or television, was Death by Gummi Bears; a girl having a picnic and from a nearby sugar anthill thousands of gummi bears stream out to devour her. Then, I did Death by Tupperware where a Japanese high school student in her uniform is being attacked by an enormous slimy tentacle from a creature that has formed in her refrigerator. In Death by Saran Wrap a girl is trying [to wrap] a small container of strawberries when two huge plastic spiders start to wrap her into a cocoon of plastic wrap. All these [photographs] come from the classic monster movies like the creature from the black lagoon, which I love.

Even though these photos are lighthearted, there’s something really transfixing. Why are we fascinated by the tragic deaths of glamorous, young, beautiful women?

I think that death is very seductive. It makes us appreciate the beauty in all that is ephemeral. I think Baudrillard said we seduce with our weakness. When are we frailer than in the moment when we are losing our lives?

Your photos also look like advertisements where something has gone terribly wrong. How does your work reference advertising?

I guess the presence of the brand is what turns [an image] into an advertisement. It is inevitable to [look at this work and] think back to images in television or magazines. I think if you actually slapped a slogan on top of it would even work.