Every artist has his or her oeuvre: for Degas it was ballerinas while Diane Arbus loved social outcasts. A quick glance at American photographer Terry Richardson's work suggests that shock and awe are his genres.
Known for his uncanny ability to capture the raw essence of his subjects, Richardson's work is humorous, unsettling and thought provoking.
'It's hard to compare Terry to other artists because almost everyone working in the same genre is copying him,' Dian Hanson, Richardson's editor at art-book publisher Taschen, has said. 'The guy excels in his fashion career and through sheer balls builds an equally admired side career casting himself in every man's porn fantasies. Most people would edit out these urges; Terry just bulls ahead.'
Richardson, 43, first came into the public eye in 1998, when he held a show in a New York gallery featuring a portrait of himself with semen splashed all over his face. Since then, the photographer has been pushing boundaries with risque editorials for Vogue and W and campaigns such as the one he did for Sisley, in which model Josie Maran ended up with milk from a cow's udder over her face.
Then there was the exhibition that consisted of pictures of him receiving oral sex and performing sexual acts with several women. It's no wonder the press has dubbed him the King of Pornography. 'I let the work speak for itself but I want to elicit humour and a sense of reaction from people. I want you to love [my photographs],' he says.
Not everybody is a committed fan of Richardson's approach. In fact, he makes some critics feel the queasy nausea of the reluctant voyeur.
