Twist and Shout: The naked truth unravelling Polly Penrose's new exhibition

Despite being shortlisted for the D&AD Next Photographer Award in 2015, Penrose’s photography has been the target of widespread aversion.
She has been criticised for her lack of technical skill, while her work has been blasted for being boring and unoriginal, with Francesca Woodman often cited as a precursor. 
“They’re right, it’s not original,” Penrose says, seeming to agree with her detractors’ main gripe. “But I’m not walking around saying I’m doing groundbreaking work. I think it’s interesting that I don’t re-touch. Perhaps it gives an honesty to my pictures.”
As far as the comparison to Woodman goes, she’s happy to genuflect to the celebrated artist whom killed herself at the age of 22. “[Francesca Woodman’s] pictures are much more poetic than mine. I don’t want to imitate them.”

The honesty to which she refers regards the rawness of an original image. She relies on natural lighting, and has no desire to engage in editing software and re-touching.
Thus, Penrose has an air of indifference to the comments damming this short cycle of production.
“I’m just not interested,” she says. “I get the results I want from what I already know.”
She is, however, fascinated by the ageing process and how it is transforming her body, seeing the darkening veins on her legs as an additional intricacy of detail in her photographs.
Again, this vision is not always shared by her onlookers. Her decision to bare her bodily blemishes has led to some critics shaming her breast-reduction scars, which are often mistaken for scars from breast implants. Sharp words, which seemed to have stung more than others.
“The scars are the one thing that’s different,” says Penrose. “Somehow it made [the work] not ‘ok’, whereas it would have been fine if I had not had breast implants. When in fact, I had a breast reduction.
“But then I have women writing to me saying thank you because they’ve found the work really empowering. It’s difficult, defending your work.”
This may have been the case, yet the photographer insists there is no agenda, no emotional message she is trying to express through this series. There was never any motive to depict a hidden narrative. She observes her body as a form, one not necessarily of expression.
“I think, if I was really large or really skinny, then that might be something people would pick up on,” says Penrose. “But, as it is, I’m average height and average size, which is why it works well in what I do; you look at the body and the space rather than at my figure.
“My body is as much an object in a still life, along with the chair, the two rubber rings,” says Penrose, handling a photograph from Pool Party. “Yes, I am objectifying but it is in a positive way.”
Pool Party, Rubber Rings, August 2015This is also apparent in her perception of herself as a model. Penrose is wearing a crew neck shirt and jumper, trousers and long boots. In her social life, she feels uncomfortable wearing low cut tops and would not dream of putting on a mini skirt.
But she exposes herself in her photography with complete confidence.
Indeed, in contrast with her previous exhibition, where the photographs were printed at 10×12 inches, her new exhibition will see photographs scaling at 1 x 1.5 metres, almost life size.
“It’s not me, it’s a photograph of me,” says Penrose. “I don’t think they’re sexually alluring; they don’t have that energy about them. I’m not confident in parading my flesh around in how I dress, but I’m totally comfortable with this. It’s very different.”
Oyster, July 2015
There is no doubt Penrose has flair. Her face lights up, her body quite literally lifting off the chair when she talks about her work. She exclaims in delight as she re-lives the moment she got ‘the shot’.
Retaining the one consistent motif of picturing herself within its subject matter, 10 Seconds presents a new chapter in the photographer’s oeuvre. Technical adjustment may be lacking, but there is certainly evidence of a keen eye for colour and balanced composition.
Penrose does not pretend to create anything other than art for art’s sake, which may be the reason behind the disappointment of those demanding a certain etiquette in her work. 
At the same time, pairing this with her disregard for the technical potential of a camera may result in a detachment from the sphere of professional photography.
Nevertheless, for now we are invited to interpret the shapes in the ‘still lifes’ for what they are, much like pondering the ambiguous and peculiar shapes of passing clouds.
“Maybe I’m not a photographer,” says Penrose. “Maybe I’m an artist and my medium is photography. What I do is very, very simple. If people just made art that other people liked, they’d get in a real state, wouldn’t they?”
10 Seconds runs from 6th until 8th May 2016 at Hoxton Gallery, 59 Old Street London EC1V 9HX. Exhibition printed by Touch Digital Ltd. More information on Polly’s work here

Izabela Radwanska Zhang

Starting out as an intern back in 2016, Izabela Radwanska Zhang is now the Editorial Director of British Journal of Photography in print and online. Her words have appeared in Disegno and Press Association. Prior to this, she completed a MA in Magazine Journalism at City University, London, and most recently, a Postgrad Certificate in Graphic Design at London College of Communication.