Vicki King’s Altered Reality

“I often feel the portrayal of women is a battleground,” Vicki King, a 24 year-old photographer tells us of the politics that surround her representations of strong, calm and occasionally nude female subjects. ”An image of the female body can be so loaded—I never want my work to be paralyzed by that.”

Currently in her final year of a photography degree at London College of Communication, King cites photographers Francesca Woodman and Anne Brigman, as well as writer Anaïs Nin, as the women who have most inspired her aesthetic style and creative process. “[They are] women who aren’t afraid to express female desire and sexuality in a free and unburdened manner.”

Vicki’s images are surreal, otherworldly and fantastical, while still remaining firmly grounded in reality, and she “always find[s herself] most drawn to people who can emulate that”. The subjects she chooses—her favorite, of which, is her sister (“For a long time when I first started out she was the only person I would take pictures of”)—may look as though they’re on the verge of being swept away or luring us into an unseen rabbit hole, but they’re doing so in familiar, actual locations like parks, bedrooms and theme parks.

Studying in a city like London, she tells us, has a lot of benefits—namely for the fact that it allows her to be exposed to so many like-minded creatives.

“I think in the UK at the moment a lot of young artists are working in a staged and fictitious manner, playing with ideas of altered realism, perhaps this comes from a dissatisfaction with what is going on around them, but its definitely something I find to be relatable with my own work.”

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• Art by

  Vicki King