Di ffrench(1946 – 1999) is considered to be one of New Zealand's most innovative performance and photographic artists. The large cibachrome photographic works on show at the Milbank Gallery in Whanganui were conceived and executed in the 1980s and 1990s.
The works range from small personal portraits of artists to large and vividly coloured cibachrome prints. The depth of the prints imbues the works with an ocean of colour and shadow. Cibachrome prints are archivally very strong, very sharp and robust but producing them was problematic and they are now rarely produced.
The relevance and potency of these photographs, in so far as subject matter and sexual politics, remains undiminished and is as current today as when they were first exhibited.
Di ffrench's interest in the male/female dichotomy meant that she explored issues that challenged what the traditional art scene was doing at the time – and she was widely known as a fierce feminist artist.
In these works she combines sculpture, painting and photography. A process that required time, construction and the manipulation of imagery and bodies, including her own. She would place sculptural objects on the floor, overlay with pure pigment colours and then project images against the tableau, photographing the result.
She was particularly interested in the "male gaze" and she explored this extensively. She challenged the way the female form was often arranged (by men) into classical and idealised poses. Her photographic works allow her female subjects to be self-determining and provocative on their own terms. Often ffrench uses her own naked body in her work – taking the strong poses she learnt from martial arts.
