First Gaze

Come again? by Jessica Carmen Shamley 32cm x 22cm

Jessica Carmen Shamley is a Cape Town-based artist whose work explores femaleness, femininity and womanhood. Her latest series entitled “First Gaze" subverts the idea that the selfie is a narcissistic, vapid expression.

Through mixed media and oils, Shamley examines the often overlooked sensuality of real women, the unacknowledged strength of vulnerability and the exquisite beauty of corporeal flaws.

“I study the female form because I’m fascinated by it and I love it in all its many forms. It’s like an internal narrative that’s told on the outside,” says Shamley. “There is absolute beauty in imperfection; Imperfect is the norm. It’s what we really are.”

The “First Gaze" series urges people to see themselves as art; to see the beauty of their own imperfection.

“It’s the approval of the self in an instant. These intimate self-portraits encapsulate that moment when women are in charge of their own image, of their own feelings of sexuality.”

The collection, however, is both a reflection and a warning, laying bare the journey of the selfie, which begins as a gesture of immediacy signifying agency over one’s image. That switch is flipped when it enters the digital super-public sphere, where its consumption, reproduction and distribution is beyond the originator’s control.