Famed Vogue photographer unveils never before seen works, including picture of Cara Delevingne, capturing vulnerability of women 'overwhelmed by their world'
- British fashion photographer Miles Aldridge has new exhibition in London
- His work is both visually stunning and implicitly unsettling
- Pictures include women with blank expressions trying to make sense of their world
- On display at Somerset House till late September
British fashion photographer Miles Aldridge has pictured some of the world's most beautiful women for Vogue covers and style spreads.
While those shoots are often all about beauty and clothes, now he is giving an insight into his own mind with a new exhibition at London's Somerset House showcasing his more creative - and some what darker - side.
His collection of technicoloured dream-like scenes of women contrast beauty with tragedy and drama, such as a smashed objects, silent screaming and implicit violence.
Venus Smiles #8: Miles photographs Cara Delevingne in dramatic lighting, constrasting her beauty with the blank expression on her face
'Actress #6': Within the technicoloured perfect world is inserted a disturbing glimpse of extreme emotion
The works, some of which have never been seen before, will be on display at London's Somerset House this summer.
'I Only Want You to Love Me' is a major retrospective of Aldridge's work, to coincide with the publication of the book by the same name.
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Women and colour have long been Aldridge’s twin obsessions, and he has photographed some of the most stunning women in the world, including model-of-the-moment Cara Delevingne.
His work is filled with glamorous, beautiful women posing as dazed housewives and decadent beauties or sunbathing sexpots and ecstatic Virgin Marys.
'Tan Lines #4': Combining beauty with explicit sexuality Miles pictures a beautiful model fondling herself and sucking an ice lolly
However viewers will notice that the colourful world of seemingly perfect women with blank expressions belies a deeper sense of disturbance and neurosis. Look more closely and there is silent screaming, a head pushed down on a bed, a face covered in polythene, a woman pushing an empty swing.
The artist revealed the sentiment behind his striking images in an interview with the Daily Telegraph earlier this year.
He said: 'These women aren't blank because they have nothing to say. They are blank because they're overwhelmed by their world. When somebody is thinking, they look blank. And it's that moment that I'm trying to capture.
'When somebody looks lost in thought they're vulnerable, and you're able to intrude on that privacy and take a photograph that captures this human being using their brain, trying to clarify how they got to this position.
'Why are they at the sink washing up, or in the playground pushing a swing with no child in it? To me, the great moments in Hollywood are close-ups of a woman's face, thinking, and she's just realised that her whole world is wrong.'
The exhibition has been timed to coincide with the book 'I Only Want You to Love Me' by Miles Aldridge
Aldridge’s influences include film directors such as David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock and Federico Fellini; the styled elegance of fashion photographer Richard Avedon and the psychedelic illustrations of his father, Alan Aldridge.
Each image is immaculately crafted, often starting with story-board drawings so that the final image lies somewhere between cinema and photography.
Luscious colours dazzle from every image – blood red ketchup splashes against a black and white floor; a mouth drips with gold; egg yolk oozes across a plate.
Miles will also share an in depth and personal view of his 15 years spent in the fashion world in an exhibition running alongside the Somerset House show, called Short Breaths.
Not drawing a blank: Miles Aldridge at the opening of his exhibition. He said he aims to show that women are not vacant but thinking by their expression
Unhappy ending: Miles Aldridge and his model wife Kirstin McMenamy at their wedding in 1997, they are now getting divorced
Born in London in 1964, Aldridge studied illustration at Central St Martins, and briefly directed music videos before becoming a fashion photographer in the mid-90s.
He has published his work in many influential magazines including Vogue Italia, American Vogue, Numéro, The New York Times and The New Yorker. His work was showcased in Weird Beauty at the International Center for Photography in New York in 2009, and he has works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
He married supermodel Kristen McMenamy in a star-studded ceremony 1997 where she was given away by Karl Lagerfeld with Naomi Campbell as a bridesmaid.
The couple went on to have two children together but the relationship broke down earlier this year and they are now in the process of getting divorced.
Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You to Love Me is on display at Somerset House until 29 September. For more information and tickets visit www.somersethouse.org.uk
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