Vogue Archives - Photoshop and Photography

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Featured Artist – Melanie Pullen
Melanie Pullen – Born NYC, 1975: She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Melanie Pullen is a self-taught fine-art photographer raised in a family of photojournalists, publishers and artists. Her photography is heavily influenced by early forensic photography, war journalism, cinema and fashion. Pullen’s work focuses on both social values and taboos while purposely taking aim at the media’s exploitation of sex, gender, and violence. Pullen herself has noted that she targets society’s glamorization of violent acts and crimes by literally re-dressing what are deeply disturbing events, forcing the viewer to question their own values and observations. “I’m continuously creating imagery that questions our perceptions and our ingrained desire to glamorize violence.”
Pullen’s most notable series, High Fashion Crime Scenes (2003-2007) is based on vintage crime-scene images Pullen mined from the files of The Los Angeles Police Department and The LA County Coroner’s Office. Drawn to the rich details and compelling stories preserved in the criminal records, Pullen began re-enacting these crime-scenes, with well-known actresses and models, outfitting the “victims” in current haute-couture, and photographing them in her elaborately staged settings. Her subsequent series Violent Times 2008-2016 is comprised of over 100 images of recreations of found war images, creations of soldier portraits as still statuesque men frozen and then later massive redundant images of them acting out in poetic acts of violence.

Melanie’s work is held in the permanent collections of: The Getty Museum; The Museum of Contemporary Art; The Jumex Museum, Mexico City; in addition to many other notable collections. In 2019 her work will be included in the The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

She has been featured in hundreds of publications including: The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Esquire Magazine, ELLE Magazine, London’s Sunday Independent, Spin Magazine, W Magazine, Flaunt Magazine, 1814 Magazine, and Vanity Fair and she has published two photography books, which received critical acclaim.

Melanie was awarded the D&AD Yellow Pencil Award, which is internationally regarded as the most prestigious award in design.
www.melaniepullen.com