16.11.07 Esther Teichmann, 'Phantasie Fotostudio', 032c, Winter 2007/08

Esthacus Teichwynd is Esther Teichmann and Spartacus Chetwynd – both London-based artists, the former, a German-American artist whose photographs the film works delve into the nature of fantasy and desire; the latter, a painter and creator of large-scale collaborative performances. Together their work exhumes the body of an imagined icon, at once beautiful and grotesque, a Frankenstein of moments in modern cinema and culture molded from a diversity of parts. Brigitte Bardot as Roger Vadim’s muse, Brook Shields in Blue Lagoon, Leni Riefenstahl, David Lynch, Walkabout – all are references called to mind as Teichwynd’s body of work wanders, arms outstretched, through the photographs. Each work is uniquely and distinctly archival in quality, as though found on the kind of cutting-room floor you might encounter in a dream.