Grand Tetons

Nienke Klunder’s presents us with an unsettling, eerily familiar vision – neither human or still life under the studio lights. Who or what is this figure? In her series Big Rock Candy Mountains, Californian-born and Netherland-raised Klunder explores women’s sexuality as an American landscape.

Unlike standard pin ups or fashion photos, the not-quite human sculptures have no defining characteristics but those of an exaggerated elicit nature. We cannot tear our eyes away from the inflated cliches – the long, fair hair, the silky, sweet colors and heaving bosom take center stage. There is no identity present but a faceless ideal. In a land where man once overtook the wild west, Klunder hints the perfect woman is still seen as a mountain to be conquered.