Seeing is deceiving how Alison Jackson learnt to fake it big
March 28th, 2008, 4:11 pm Hobbies Ideas
About 20 minutes in, I realise the intensity of our verbal jousting has led
Alison Jackson and me to twirl our respective hairdos into matted birds’
nests. The 47-year-old photographer is intriguing, intelligent, infuriating
and briskly sexy (dressed in a very short skirt with killer legs, she has
the air of bossy head girl meets femme fatale). She adamantly tries to
protect her privacy while being known for those pictures and TV series
featuring lookalikes as celebrities caught (blurred, paparazzi-style) in
privacy-shattering moments: the Queen reading on the loo, Cherie Blair
getting an enema from Carole Caplin; and Jackson’s first jolting image,
Diana and Dodi cuddling their lovechild.
Jackson’s new set of lookalike pictures, to be exhibited in her first UK solo
show since 2003, feature Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie having anal sex, Tom
Cruise sneaking a look at David Beckham’s crotch at a urinal, Sir Paul
McCartney about to whack Heather Mills with a wooden leg, a rubber-gloved
Queen starting the washing up, Simon Cowell in the gym suggestively
positioned below a bodybuilder, and many of Amy Winehouse (in one receiving
an apparent rectal examination). The new shots of Winehouse don’t quite
work, I say, because you can imagine the incident being caught on film for
real. These images don’t add to what we know. Yes, Jackson assents in her
posh, playful voice, celebrities like Winehouse have collapsed the boundary
between public and private.
Have these blurrily shot works become one-note? The joke is glancing, then
suddenly over. Is it time for to Jackson to move on? She’s taking straight
portraits of theatre stars now for J Sheekey’s, the starry London fish
restaurant, she reveals - although this isn’t the most ambitious of her
plans, it will emerge. I do a lot of portraits, many no one sees, she
says. David Starkey, Beryl Bainbridge, David Cameron. I’m quite shy and in
awe of them. They are extraordinarily brilliant and I am minuscule in
comparison. With politicians it’s amazing seeing them go from family person
to their public face in a flash.
She has quite a few Camerons’ on her books, and is renowned for her explicit
and rude mockery. Are these famous people nervous about her intentions? I
know I have a mischievous streak but I’m quite formal. I don’t have a
problem with doing well-behaved. I hope nothing rude pops out of my mouth.
She is about to photograph someone whom she has featured in the past using a
lookalike. I can’t name them. It’ll jinx it. I’ll approach with great
caution. How do celebrities react when they recognise her? Some love it,
some don’t, some go blank. Liz Hurley got huffy. Look, I’m not into
celebrity, she says impatiently, I’m into our perception of celebrity.
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