Tracey Rose

The title of this photograph is derived from the name of a fictional character in Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov’s book Lolita, published in 1955. The novel is a story about a middle-aged man who lures and molests a twelve-year-old girl. He abducts Lolita to embark on a cross-country trip across the United States of America. Lolita is represented as a precocious girl from the perspective of the older man who is the only narrator of the story. Her voice, thoughts and feelings are not expressed in the novel.

In this photograph, Rose depicts Lolita as a rag doll with red hair, with her face painted in white make-up with red cheeks, lying seductively on a red truck wearing a red dress and red shoes. The color red can be associated with lust, passion and love, as well as anger and danger. In other parts of the world, red refers to sex work, brothels and prostitution, such as the red-light districts.

Rose’s photograph examines the sexualization of young girls and examines how popular literature glorifies child abuse.