Fiona Clark – Cosmetic Women, 1975

Cosmetic Women was Clark’s first colour series. Shot in mid-1970s Auckland shopping arcades and department stores, it captures sales assistants and the mannequins who populated these spaces. Coiffed hair, painted faces, fitted dresses, wigs and gleaming counters make the shop floor appear theatrical, yet Clark photographs it with restraint. The women meet the camera with highly trained composure, their gestures and everyday routines set alongside the mannequins’ immaculate staging. Clark was drawn to the close-knit, working-class women staffing the cosmetics counters and wig bar at George Courts, a Karangahape Road department store. Thinking back, she recalls their camaraderie and solidarity, though they did not necessarily identify as feminists. Presented here at full scale for the first time, the series affirms Clark’s conviction that working-class women overlooked by the women’s movement must be written back into history.

Fiona Clark’s photographic practice is rooted in long-term relationships grounded in collaboration and care. Her images attend to communities and environments often excluded from mainstream visibility, tracing lives, histories and forms of belonging across different contexts. Through a documentary approach, she considers how bodies, lands and identities are shaped within wider systems of value. Her photographs examine the effects of extractive economies on everyday life, while remaining closely connected to community histories, activism and the cultural memory of marginalised groups in Aotearoa New Zealand.