Leanne Shapton uses a distinctive technique of categorization, repetition, and isolation in order to draw out new meaning from otherwise arbitrary subjects. The uniform, then, seems an apt subject for Shapton. In this series, she presents nine cropped watercolors of women in uniform, laid out like detail studies from a textbook or documentary film. A stoic romance emerges in their grouping—owed also to their monochromatic, hazy rendering and their outmoded, ever-glamorous, headwear. Perhaps offering a parallel conversation alongside Shapton’s collaborative 2014 book, Women in Clothes, the Women in Uniform series explores women’s career and vocational opportunities, their societal value and respect, as encapsulated in the genre of uniform.
Leanne Shapton, b. 1973, is a Canadian author, artist, and publisher based in New York City. Shapton’s Swimming Studies won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography, and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books, an internationally-distributed not-for-profit imprint specializing in art and photography books. Her works have appeared in various publications such as The New York Times, Granta, and The New Yorker, and she teaches in the creating writing department at Columbia University School of the Arts. Shapton is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Her latest book is Guestbook, a collection of short stories.
Watercolor on paper
Unique
