Fowl play

Ione Rucquoi is a woman standing up for her sex, and in her series of photographic portraits, Birds, Fishwives and Bunnygirls, she elegantly sticks two fingers up at society's age-old perceptions of women. As the title suggests, she's especially riled by the host of derogatory labels that brand her sisters as demeaned sub-humans. She retaliates with devastating effect. Her lavish tableaux vivants use exaggerated stereotypes of female sexuality - painted-on make-up, ostentatious costumes and conspicuous nudity - to metamorphose her sitters into grotesque parodies of womanhood. Complete with telling props, beaked noses and crabs' legs, it's fairly unequivocal: here is one shrew that will not be tamed.
Holly Kyte