The photograph, GC2 298 (2010) by Jill Greenberg is part of the Glass Ceiling series featuring athletes and dancers from a synchronised swim troupe. The work plays with candy coloured, luscious feminine hues with violet undertones rendering the professional swimmers headless and incapacitated with their sexualised bodies as the focus. The series was shot at a Culver City swimming pool while the artist lay below the surface in full scuba gear. “As these athletes attempt to pose the water knocks them into awkward positions. The heels are overtly absurd and hinder their movement, amplifying their lack of control in this underwater world.”

The series is a return for the artist to her graduate thesis on the Female Object, highlighted by a quote by Sandra Lee Bartky: “The disciplinary project of femininity is a setup, it requires such radical and extensive bodily transformation, that a woman is destined in some degree to fail.” Greenberg explores the female body and its objectification and constraints of feminine clothing, yet it creates a captivating image through luminescent colours and tones.