Debra Hampton is best known for her psychedelic mash-up collages of female heroines created from fashion and lifestyle magazine advertisements.
To prepare for a work, Hampton sifts through countless images from catalogues and magazines; selecting objects that signify social power, desire, immortality and status. These symbols are juxtaposed with those representing defense, competition, strength, war and violence.
The figures contain and emit duality. They emerge from the cacophony of dissected emblems while also expelling shards of modern entrapment. It is neither meant as an endorsement or a simple critique. Rather, these portraits are to be considered explorations of material, spiritual, and ethical contradictions and transformation.
