Yvonne Todd was born in Auckland in 1973 where she now lives and works. She trained and worked in commercial photography before she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Auckland University majoring in sculpture in 2001. The following year she was the winner of the inaugural Walters Prize (New Zealand’s largest contemporary art prize) with a series of ten photographs made in her final year of study.
She creates images that are disquieting, a little bit off and not quite right. Todd creates portraits of female characters straight out of the 80’s, posing with empty gazes, exaggerated make up, big hair and teeth. She manipulates the familiar and conventional through costume, cliché and aspects of performance. Her irreverent wit is the driving force behind her work.
These six works are a collaboration between Yvonne Todd and Megan Dunn to celebrate the launch of Megan’s new memoir/essay collection “Things I Learned at Art School” . The model is a stand-in for a young Megan, circa late-1990s. Yvonne & Megan deployed a range of costumes to evoke the rite of passage ‘dressing up’ element that art school seems to induce in young women (something both Yvonne & Megan did)
Yvonne has had many solo exhibitions here and internationally and her work features in many important collections both public and private.
