Isabella Ramsay: TOPOGRAPHIES OF THE BODY; 'other' ways of looking

This work explores the female body as landscape, delineating and challenging the dualism between inside and outside, creating and re-investing in a history of the body. It questions the idealization of the female nude and the search for perfection, and the consequent projections endowed by the voyeur, particularly in relation to concepts of fantasy and reality. Working with the ordinary female form, Ramsay seeks to re-instate the individual and to address the invisibility of the aged and used body in the pleasures and sensuality of the 'non-ideal'. It is accompanied by a text and narrative defining and redefining the work from the perspective of both photographic models and audiences.

Isabella Ramsay has worked mainly in the field of issue-based photography, both personally and professionally, and has worked for various institutions , such as health authorities, charities, and in education. In consequence of the intersection of her academic and professional qualifications, both in photography and psychotherapy, her current productions are informed by theories of psychoanalysis and feminism and debates around 'art versus pornography' and subsequent issues relating to censorship. This work stems from two previous bodies of work exploring the nude, both as self-portraiture and the male nude. She currently works with poetry and therapy and in women's health.

The Obsessions Group Exhibitors, Patricia Townsend, Rosy Martin, Izzy Ramsay and Gina Glover, will be conducting a seminar and discussion on Saturday 21st October