Scrutiny

Scrutiny is a signed limited edition digital print by graphic artist Storm Thorgerson.

The last work from Storm Thorgerson encapsulates so much about his vision as an artist. The image we are presented with nominally asks questions of technology versus nature, and man’s paranoia of woman, but it also reveals much about his working process and his overall desire to make his audience think- to stop to consider, and to fire their imagination; their sense of the surreal. The machine Scrutiny was actually constructed by Thorgerson and his team at Storm Studios, there is no photoshop/ computer generated malarkey here, just straightforward photography; Thorgerson considers this more real.

"I want our productions to tell a story. My goal is to invest a picture with ambiguity. To make people curious. To make them want to look again."

Scrutiny is an exploration of the mystery of womanhood, it’s non-definable non-empirical nature and man’s quest to understand, quantify and categorise it. So this is a work about the battle between the sexes. It is also a work that pits man/nature against machine/technology. The machine is massive, inescapable- much like technology in our day to day lives. The human body is exposed, frail and vulnerable before it.