Mathu Andersen is Australian born, with a background in fashion and textile design. Mathu moved to New York in 1986 and subsequently formed a partnership with Zaldy Goco as a NYC nightlife fixture during the 90’s. He is RuPaul's longtime creative collaborator and makeup artist. Mathu has worked extensively in the world of makeup, he has also taken the past couple of years to put more energy towards his work in photography and graphic design. His work with World of Wonder Productions has also allowed him to expand into other areas like writing, producing, film editing and generally being a part of pop culture in an interesting way.
This particular photographer is not known for his photography work specifically, more his role in the fashion and world of self-identity and expression. I have chosen to take inspiration from Mathu Andersen because of the things that he contributes to society and his because of his photography work as a whole.
Mathu Andersen's Work
This first image consists of 9 separate images put together in the form of a collage. The denotations of all the photographs are as follows: (Ordered to left to bottom right) All of the images feature Mathu Andersen himself, topless and wearing black suspenders. All of the facial expressions, wigs and lipstick colours vary withing the images. The lipstick colours match the hair colours. The first image shows him posed with one hand on his hip and the other holding up a flower made of paper. He is wearing a large grey, frizzy wig.
The second image shows him posed with both arms in the air holding onto each other. The is wearing a straight, silver wig which has been tied to hide his face.
The third image shows him holding a red lipstick up to his lips. He is wearing a long, curly blonde wig and a masquerade mask over his eyes.
The forth image shows Andersen holding onto his suspenders. He is wearing a medium length, messy, ginger wig and thin framed glasses.
The fifth image shows the artist pulling his nostrils outwards using his little fingers. He is not wearing a wig in this image.
The sixth image reveals Mathu posed with one hand resting on his head and the other posed holding a strand of hair. The wig he is wearing is a dark grey colour and is large.
The seventh image shows Andersen with his arms loosely crossed and holding onto each other. He is wearing a long black and blonde ombre coloured wig.
The eighth image shows Mathu posed to the left of frame with his body hunched. He has a frizzy brown coloured wig that has a black fabric of some sort wrapped around the hair and face.
The ninth and final image shows Mathu Andersen with one hand raised to cover one eye. It looks as if he is wiping away tears. His wig in this image is an ombre of yellow and white and is very large.
From these denotations we can connote many things. There are a large range of characters and emotions being portrayed within this collage of images from a single person. From the artist portraying 9 very different characters by using a range of body language and props, we can connote that Mathu is trying to say that a single person can have many personalities and emotions within them. This links to the theme of Self-Identity very well as there are many different identities that Mathu himself is portraying himself as.
I believe this piece of art was made to express the connotations within the different images and within the one collage as a whole. The image is expressing how important it is to find yourself.
This second image is also of the artist. This single image shows Mathu Andersen and his two different identities by using makeup and facial features. The left side of the image has a black background and is showing Mathu with a long, grey beard and with natural face makeup on; Andersen is also shirtless.
The right side has a white background and shows Mathu's natural skin without makeup; He also has very minimal facial hair and is clothed.
This image is a self portrait version of his other creations of Drag Queens who are in half-and-half drag with the left side of the image in drag and the right out of drag.
The connotations of this image are very simple yet also very powerful. Mathu is portraying two different persona's of himself. The first persona is and older, more refined version of himself and the other is a younger version. Through analysis of Mathu himself and the different things he has been featured in, the left side of the image is seen more of the time. This may be because he has finalised who he is as a person and found himself.
These next two images are very similar trough composition and editing; However, they both represent the people within frame differently.The first picture on the left shows a character that Mathu has created and decided to portray himself. The character looks like a demon of some sort. The second picture on the right is of a famous LGBTQ+ Icon known as RuPaul. Both of these character are opposites and are portrayed very differently in the photos yet they are both composed in the same manner. The lighting, background ad editing is all very similar but the content of the images is what changes the mood and effect of the images. The demon image has a very dark and ominous tone to it yet the RuPaul image holds a glamorous tone.
Influence
Mathu Andersen's work has inspired me in many ways. The content of his work is what has inspired me to chose the project subject matter of self-identity; The way he presents his work and the way he presents himself as an artist is very inspiring to me. All of his work is very original and unique in it's own way. Who he is, what he stands for and the type of people he works with is what also inspires me to carry on working in the direction that I am working in.
The way he creates surreal characters and presents them in a glamorous light is very interesting and could easily hold a large range of connotations. It also shows his possible views on the beauty world. Despite is surreal and freaky characters, he also presents beauty in the stereotypical way which is evident with the portraits such as RuPaul's.
Overall, Mathu Andersen is a big part of my project as most of my work is based and inspired off of his work and characters; So much so that I have decided to re-create one of his Instagram art pieces that has been analysed above.
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