I chose to look at “Nikki S. Lee, Part (14), 2002 [photograph]” more closely. It appears Nicki is acting as a women sitting in a car with an arm wrapped around her shoulders, which looks to be a males arm and the face of the man is not seen. The women is starring off into the distance, her facial expression sad and longing to perhaps be somewhere else.
I feel that perhaps the image is about an unloving relationship, or at least a relationship that is bad enough she does no longer want to be in it anymore. However the male is still committed shown by the affectionate gesture of him placing his arm around her shoulder. I feel either she doesn’t know how to get out of the relationship or it could be more darker and it’s an abusive relationship that she is feeling trapped in. This is shown by her sad and longing facial expression and by her body language; she is facing the opposite direction of whoever is wrapping their arm around her as she does not want to be reminded of the pain of her situation.
I feel Nicki is trying to convey in a subtle way how isolating and lonely bad relationships can feel to the viewer. Perhaps she has gone through this personally and is an aspect she struggled with the most whilst being in a bad relationship, so she felt the need to express it through her work. Perhaps this was simply her own expression and she did not consider the viewers perspective on this piece that much and it was simply an outlet of the trauma she faced.
I decided to choose this image out of the four to analyse as I was intrigued by the images potential dark subtext, the other images failed to interest me in the same way.