Photographer Florence Iff is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Me, Myself & I’. To see Florence’s body of work, click on any photograph.

This work symbolizes a psychological state of human existence in a female body and simultaneously the poses are references to depictions of women in historic paintings.

We like to think of ourselves as an entity, as an individual as a whole. I experience myself much more like a fragmented world, constantly shifting, deconstructing and rearranging its parts, its habits and thoughts. Dependent and influenced by our surroundings, media, politics, etc a self-created individual and an entirety in itself being an illusion. We try to distinguish and beautify ourselves by means of outfits and decorations, though physically we’re built all the same and function the same. We are body through and through.

The pictures are constructed on and show different levels of this issue. Body parts appear in sparse arrangements, leaving the beholder to individually reshape a whole.

With names connoted to beauty and poses based on classic depictions of women, I used cutouts from glossy magazines and perfectly calculated models of inner organs. Although these “women” look appealing at first sight, the unmasking happens as soon as one perceives the background, which should actually be the surface: skin live as it can be, with marks, hair, blemishes and spots.

Nonetheless there is beauty within our functioning and functional body and these portraits are also meant to shine a light on this gift from nature.