Nurses Pride

The title comes from a pair of stockings that I happened to find in an antique shop in North Dakota in 2010. The series refers to my Blonde Nurse series, especially the uniforms, though the stockings and wigs here have more to do with the fetish ideology of nurses. The objects create an image but are at the same time props for a made-up reality, where the tender caring and nursing part is less obvious and the imagination takes over.

Women are common subject matter for Birgir, especially blond women. Birgir utilizes, in accordance with the subject, a very light use of colour. The colours have the effect upon the subjects to virtually disappear, which is in direct oppostition to the noise that characterizes the contemporary media through which the artist seeks inspiration. In the work Nurse’s Pride an image of white nylon socks merges with the background. The title of the work takes its name from a brand of nurse’s clothing, but in the photo series there are also images of blond wigs. The wig can be viewed as a part of the nurse’s uniform if we keep in mind the stagnated image of the blond nurse. It can also lead to an interpretation pointing towards its worship as a holy object and a dark eroticism.

Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir