Jessalyn Finch began Paper Doll nearly a decade ago as an experiment in self-portraiture. Initially, the work examined the caricatures individuals create of themselves to align with societal standards of beauty. Over time, it evolved into a deeper exploration of objectification and the disorienting experience of feeling reduced to two-dimensional versions of the self, identities that could be dressed up, interchanged, and performed for different people and situations. The title recalls childhood paper dolls, whose flatness and fragility echo this sense of inauthenticity.
Each photographic piece is composed of multiple images printed on transparent plastic sheets, layered and altered to reveal shifting, ghostlike forms. As the layers are flipped, fragments are removed, transformed, and reassembled into new compositions. The resulting dreamlike interplay of selves conjures a meditation on beauty, worth, and the rules imposed by society — exposing how these constructs are not rooted in reality, but in inherited beliefs and external expectations.
