liz wolfe.

A version of this article also appeared on Josh Spear

Hiding beneath the vibrant candy colours of Canadian photographer Liz Wolfe’s stunning work is a whole bunch of twisted contradictions.

Exploring the juxtaposition between what we commonly consider pretty (flowers) and what we mostly consider gross (an octopus), the sugary perfections of her work force us to re-evaluate those considerations. Her shots include tentacles gently curled inside the curves of a rose and a pattern of sardines and daisies laid on the grass beneath a woman’s high-heeled feet.

My personal fave is a prostrate hand impaled on a candy stick that bleeds red sprinkles. Never what they first seem, her photos make the ugly look exquisite and the horrific seem cute. One of the great powers of her work is that by forcing us to try and understand why a bouquet of fish heads can looks so beautiful, we’re driven to re-evaluate our very ideas of beauty itself.