Lady Amanda Harlech, 2009
The idea of a portrait is, I think, to summate the person in some way presenting their personality in one image. However, for this portrait of Lady Amanda Harlech she delivered a performance so beautifully conceived and executed, that I felt almost a passive spectator to the delivery of a poem about love. Dressed totally in layers of sheer white clothing and helped by a mute assistant she played with ideas borrowed from the Japanese Geisha and the concept of a woman offering herself in totality to her lover who, in this case, would be the art of fashion imagery. Finishing prostrate on the floor and semi naked in front of the camera with ink running down her cheeks like black tears. Spent and exhausted. I felt very much that she had presented a performance to passionately sum up her life in fashion. - Nick Knight
