Cristine Brache is an artist whose recent exhibition, Centerfolds at Bernheim gallery in London, focuses on former Playmate Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered by her husband at just 20 years old. Here, Brache explains how Stratten’s poetry refocused her image.
"I knew Dorothy Stratten’s face long before I knew any of her words.
For most people who know her at all, this is probably how Dorothy enters the imagination: as an image. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a particular softness in her face. Playboy’s Miss August 1979 and Playmate of the Year in 1980, she had the kind of beauty that elicits an almost unbearable, visceral response because it is so rare and otherworldly. Her image possesses you and, in turn, makes you want to possess her, creating a mirage of intimacy, the strange illusion that we truly know something about her beyond what we see. "
- Cristine Brache
