The Looking-glass Self

In The Looking-glass Self, I examine self-image and the act of seeing. As I explore in the work, identity is constituted by our power of looking and in the ways in which other people become authors, through the act of looking, of our own identity. Further, in the series I bring to the foreground a specific experience of the female gender as it becomes a site for the convergence of these acts of looking. In the work I use double exposures to show the multiple dimensions of experience and appearance. This act of doubling, which is both aesthetic and conceptual, refers to the often conflicted ways that our identities make themselves visible. The pieces themselves feature a mirror, sometimes intact but often broken. Tension created by repetition of imagery and thematic fragmentation, makes visible the relationship between the many layers of perception and expression that form a sense of one’s self.

Fine-art photographer Renée Munn is best known for her large-scale black and white collaged portraits composed from multiple negatives using traditional film and darkroom techniques. As a photographer Munn is interested in the expressive possibilities of the medium. In her work she explores numerous analogue and darkroom techniques such as double and triple exposure, photogram’s, combination printing and cliché verre to alter her figures and create a single image that is both real and imagined. Munn has a BFA from Ryerson University’s School of Image-Arts in photography. Since graduating she has been the recipient of several international awards and her artwork has been acquisitioned by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Ryerson University for their permanent collections. Munn’s practice is currently based in Toronto.