I absolutely love Sophie McMahan! I really can’t say enough about her and her unique blend of monstrous surrealism and classic illustration. Her portrayal of the 1940’s and 50’s femme fatale easily translates into the modern girls world. Classic pin-up style bombshells turned monsters still obtain the male gaze with floating wigs and green lumpy skin. In other scenes the women are drawn into a composition of what was expected of them in their era and the secrets they hid beneath their beauty. Sophie explains her process and sources, “photographs from this era generally present images of prosperity, wholesomeness, and order, with clean-cut people usually bearing exaggerated, almost absurd grins. Yet these images of assuredness do not reflect what life was like for most people; this was a period of American history marked by unhappiness, repression and a crippling pressure to succeed. Because of this discrepancy I have felt an urge to pervert these images, hinting at the far less than perfect reality of what those times were like for most.” Sophie’s most recent awesome endeavor is turning her pin up gals into pin up magnets and t-shirts which you can check out in her Etsy store listed below.
See more of Sophie’s work here: SophiaMcmahan.com
