TODD, Yvonne, 1973-
Valley Candle (Photograph)
With a background as a commercial photographer
and shop assistant in a wig salon, Yvonne Todd is
well versed in artifice and masquerade.
She completed her BFA at Elam School of Fine
Arts in 2001, the year before she won New
Zealand’s art world’s highest art accolade, the
Walters Prize, awarded to her by Venice Biennale
curator Harald Szeeman. Her Sea of Tranquility
series from that year posed beauty consultants
collected up from Auckland department stores
against black backgrounds like so many Stepford
Wives. She has continued to foreground the
performance of femininity ever since, although her
practice is centred more generally on the business
of image-making itself.