B: How would you describe your approach to beauty now?
TL: My approach to beauty is actually the opposite to a lot of my friends. They all do so much research and are obsessed with finding the best of the best, but to be honest, I don't research. I feel everyone has different skin and different needs. I'm all about trial and error—when I find something that I love, I'll keep buying it. I don't pay attention to what other people are using unless I see maybe, an insane lip colour, then I need to know. Otherwise, I just wing it.
In 2011, after two decades of taking pictures of myself in private, I began a series of self-portraits disguised as a fictional character named Joyce. Without knowing how to explain what I was doing at the time, I used my grandmothers’ houses or rented bedrooms online, and took pictures of myself while the hosts were asleep. Once alone I used Joyce to reenact the private underlife of a woman consumed by the laboured construct of femininity, carried out to the point of ritualised absurdity.
‘The Honeymoon’ is a continuation of the ‘Joyce’ series. In the spring of 2015 I spent a week alone at a romantic-themed couples resort in the USA. With a suitcase of wigs and lingerie, I posed as a travel writer and began using each room in the resort as a stage to perform solitary acts of desire and disappointment. In each room we find Joyce in moments of prepartion and anticipation. Seduction has begun in secrecy. A green clay body-mask beauty routine becomes a science-fiction metamorphosis. Joyce appears alone, absorbed and exhausted by her own reflection.
