Review of Vintage Dolls

A golden-haired child lies resplendent on a turquoise bed – eyes closed, hair splayed – in a pose reminiscent of Ophelia slipping into the murky depths. However, standing over her with a porcelain doll in hand is another girl, this one wearing a ravagingly sinister wolf mask. Is this a childhood game? A re-enactment of Little Red Riding Hood? Or has something wicked actually just taken place?

This is just one of 13 images in Samantha Everton’s new photographic exhibition, Vintage Dolls, all as fantastically unsettling as the next. The combination of eerie light, seeping green undertones, a decrepit, abandoned house and this troupe of menacing little girls roaming free creates an overall picture of a fantasy dollhouse for the disturbed, in which black cats, Baroque clothes and red velvet are recurring symbols, taking on the form of talismans.

The production of Everton’s art is itself wholly singular, appearing so real and lifelike the images add to the overall surreal quality, as if you could put your hand into the photo and be transported into this world of sinister make-believe. Everton’s method of making photographs is as decadent as the images themselves: using film, each photograph is digitally remastered in post-production before being printed on absorbent watercolour paper with pigment ink, and the result is thoroughly, disturbingly lush.