The Hermes Scarf Horse

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The play by Peter Shaffer, where a psychiatrist attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological sexual obsession with horses, is reminiscent of the work of US photographer Monica Stevenson she uses luxury goods such as Tiffany bracelets and Hermes Scarves on and next to equines as the focus for some of her major work.

This piece of a horse wearing a luxury scarf 'Hermes Scarf Horse’ won Stevenson a place in the ‘Advertising photographers of America’. It spurns you to question your morality, is the horse alive? Is that leather belts around the ears? It makes you question the use of animals in luxury. It grabs you and makes you look at the scarf, it captures your interest in a way that a model on a catwalk would not.

Monica's main subjects have always been horses, her equine photographs are displayed proudly on her website. I think she mixes the use of luxury Hermes and Gucci goods with ther love of equines beautifully in her work.

Her work is alluring and invites you to watch? Stevenson is showing you a secret and your not entirely sure that you should be looking at it.

The work has almost a sadomasochistic edge to it, highlighted by the use of horse and human hair wound around Iron stirrups and leather straps, oddly enough a similar thing is depicted on this vintage Hermes scarf.

Sometimes Stevenson users beetles and bugs in her photographs, crawling over a high gloss lipstick or perfectly manicured nail. She holds the piece up to you, as she is saying "Look at it, really take time to look!".

What I love about her work is that it encapsulates a story in each shot, takes you into a fairytale world of Stevenson’s making, and although this world may not be a beautiful one much like the mind of Equus’s young hero, it is an intriguing one, and one that you seek to understand and return to again and again.