Debaser

In her self-portraits, liu Susiraja is a different kind of domestic goddess.

- JERRY SALTZ

IIU SUSIRAJA COMES FROM OM a long tradition of photographers who stay at home, dress up, and take pictures of themselves. Claude Cahun, Catherine Opie, Patty Chang, Cindy Sherman-they are there and not there in their images, playing cat and mouse with that elusive animal called identity, enacting dreams and surfacing subconscious anxieties. Susiraja is different: nearly six feet tall, heavy, inescapable. No matter what costume she puts on, no matter what pose she strikes, something bursts through that's undeniably her. "Being fat is a transgression in itself," she has said. "I try to be empty and boring, but the camera is more cunning than me."