Bark Mask 01

The Bark Mask is the second mask I created in 2012. The base is a blank Venetian volto mask, painted to resemble bare wood, then three-quarters covered with oak bark.

The model’s pose is deliberately unnatural and stylised, exploring an idea I had to make the photographs a documentation of an imaginary primal ritual or ceremony — an idea that came mid-photoshoot from looking at the model in the mask through the camera viewfinder.

The purpose of this first photoshoot was just to get a feeling for how the masks would work on camera under photography lights. I was fairly pleased with the results, and I also learnt a few lessons for future photographs with masks.