Backlog

Gender identities and gender roles are not the same. Gender roles are produced by society, gender identities are psychological.
How can I utilize the ideas of gender roles and identities are separate parts of personalities? Perhaps the image at the front could be the gender role, a mask dictated by society, and the gender identity could be the person behind the mask, the true, psychological gendered (or non-gendered) self.
So why are the genders on the masks the opposite gender? Surely society states that we should act like the gender we are? But my work is about gender identities, including transgender. I am trying to present these trangender people, who hidden behind a gendered body, have to create or live with a fractured identity, the body of one gender and the mind of the other, or no gender at all.
What do these images mean for the rest of the population? People, like me, who have a definite gendered identity? Well, I want it to be making the viewer question this.
So what are the points of the expressions of the faces in my work? Well, me and women have traditional gender roles, men needing to be masculine according to society by being powerful, dominating, aggressive, authoritative and controlling. Women are, according to society, supposed to be feminine by being weak, submissive, passive and powerless.
I should utilise these gender roles in my work by using expressions that fit these characteristics, but by mixing and matching them, so the gender roles and gender identities become ambiguous.

So what is the relevance of the clothes and background in these works? Well the clothes obviously tend to dictate or imply a gender, if you see a person in a dress, you tend to think of them as female. Should the clothes match the gender of the mask? I suppose clothes can be seen to be used as a mask or a protector. So perhaps I could experiment with using the gender of the 'mask' for the gender of the clothes.
As for the background, I have picked a plain white background up until now, so the focus is on the 'collaged subject' but I may experiment with different backgrounds. I could use some of the images I have already taken and place all of them on the wall behind so the image becomes more fragmented and more layered. I could also experiment with he size of these images.
In Joel-Peter Witkin's work, he often uses painted/printed large images as the backdrop, often it looks as if there is a much larger room behind the subject when in fact all there is is an image. Some of these backdrops reference art history. I could perhaps use images that reference art history. I could perhaps use images that reference something relevant to do with gender identity or societies' gender roles. I don't want anything that will detract from the subject too much. Bill Viola, for example, uses a completely black background which means that all there is to focus on is the subject.
I think I should experiment with these different ideas for background to see what works best.