Lee Gainer

Lee Gainer is a photo based artist living in the Metro DC Area.

His work explores culturally and media supported perceptions.

He uses found imagery, analyzes social rules, hidden messages, the psychology behind the ides and how they may alter our behavior.

He created a fascinating body of work which can bee seen on his website.

I picked two of his series, one is Two Months Salary and the other Sleeping Women.

Excerpts from his statements to the series are included below.

Lee also runs a well known blog called Peek.

Please make sure to visit both, his blog and his website.

All images below are from the series Two Months Salary

If you visit WeddingChannel.com, you will find a ring budget tool that determines what you should spend. It divides your annual salary by 6 to come up with the "standard" two month guideline. Using this equation, along with the most recent average salary data gathered from the US Dept. of Labor and Payscale.com, I created a list of average salaries for a range of occupations. Images of rings were allocated to each occupation by price. There are 20 separate prints in this piece, each representing a specific occupation with 9 rings that, according to the jewelry industry, are the standard for that particular occupation’s salary.

All images below are from the series "Sleepy Women"

Sleepy Women is a collection of images of sleeping women found in various advertisements for pillows. Each model's image was isolated from the ad, enlarged, printed, and mounted on archival foam core and lined with white felt.

I was intrigued by the images of these women who were photographed in full make up while pretending to sleep. There's an old saying that all women should get their beauty rest. Young girls are told this early on, at least they were in previous generations, underscoring that their looks and not their talent or work ethic is their most important asset. So much so that they should take extra care to maintain and better their appearance for the sake of their own success. According to various beauty websites, it is actually a bad habit to sleep while wearing makeup. Cosmetics can clog pores and cause blemishes, eliminating any gains from resting. But yet these women lay dreaming, lovely and not a hair out of place.

© copyright all images Lee Gainer