Collection: Body Shop
In this series entitled Body Shop, photographer Jamie Nelson contrasts the gilded and silver-painted female form with the raw mechanics of an automotive shop. By placing nude women against large engines and tools, Nelson highlights the ongoing dialogue between the feminine and the masculine–softness and steel, beauty and force, body and machine.
The imagery recalls a long cultural history. Since the 1940s, women have entered traditionally male-dominated workplaces, epitomized by the iconic Rosie the Riveter poster that celebrated women’s resilience during wartime. Yet parallel to this progress runs the enduring use of female sexuality in commerce. The female body has long been leveraged as a tool of desire and persuasion. From the late 19th-century tobacco campaigns that used nude figures to entice male buyers to present-day perfume and automobile industries–culture continues to rely on sexualized imagery.
By coating the nude bodies in metallic tones, she transforms flesh into sculpture. The women do not appear as accessories to the machinery around them, but as formidable presences in their own right–commanding, resilient, and unapologetically sensual.
This series affirms that women can inhabit both strength and beauty, both industry and intimacy. By situating the female form within a traditionally masculine environment, Nelson challenges inherited narratives and reclaims agency. Her work insists that women need not choose between power and allure–they can boldly embody both.
