Mariel Clayton
Mariel Clayton (1980, Durban/South Africa) is an artist who describes herself as a 'Doll Photographer with a subversive sense of humour'. Using Barbie dolls and Japanese miniatures as her primary medium and subject, she creates dioramic images full of detail and black humour as a means of commentating on contemporary society and it's stereotypes. Inspired by current events, pop culture, music and even paper, her images are meant to be at the same time meaningful and meaningless, to be used as a conduit for interpretation by the viewer. She maintains that it is the viewers response and the thought process that leads to it which are the most important. At the very least, it is nothing more than an excuse for a good laugh.