Biography
Stephanie Todhunter grew up in the late 70s/early 80s Midwest, moving annually from small town to small town with her family. Immediacy and experimentation are essential to her multidisciplinary practice. Stephanie's work has been included in group exhibitions and featured in solo shows in Boston and across New England, and is held in private collections around the world. She is currently based outside of Boston.
Artist Statement
Stephanie Todhunter started working on the Latchkey Kids Project in 2014. The backbone of the series is an ongoing succession of plaster encased vintage dolls, each re-colored and re-named. The plaster encased girls (reminiscent of Han Solo encased in carbonite) begin as vintage Dawn dolls from the 1970s. These dolls were only made for a brief amount of time and generally only remembered by the GenX generation. Dawn dolls are smaller than Barbies and, although they have exaggerated waspish waists and perky breasts, are “tweenish” in age. They were small, generic, easy to carry and easy to lose. Once the dolls have been plastered and inked, they develop distinct and often unsettling features and personalities. Stephanie takes a photographic portrait of each girl to capture and highlight these quirks. These portraits are used in larger pieces to tell stories about the lost girls. Common themes are isolation, stranger danger, missing children, parental neglect, and lord-of-the-flies-like adventure in small town suburbia. And it is interesting to contrast these themes with those found in contemporary parenting: constant stimulation of the internet, helicopter parenting, snowflake children, online bullying- all of which are creating a new form of isolation among kids.