We are all exiles, living within the frame of some strange painting.

By Susan Bright

Tough Pleasures. It sounds like a caveat. If something is pleasurable then how can it be tough? It works in a similar way to an earlier series by Toni Wilkinson, Uncertain Surrenders. For a surrender to be successful, surely it must be definitive? Caveat or oxymoron – I am not sure. Whatever the right term, crucial to both these titles, and the photographs they claim, is ambivalence.

And here we are, before any images are even considered, the complexities of language, misuse, common understandings and slipperiness appear. Ambivalence means having a state of mixed – or contradictory –ideas about something or someone. In common parlance, however, it has come to mean not having an opinion either way. In Wilkinson’s photographs the feelings and opinions that reverberate from them are indeed strong and often contradictory. It is this kind of ambivalence that lies at the heart of her work.

I want to start with the food. Let’s be clear, pictures of food are never just about food. The history, politics and cultural signifiers surrounding it means that it is always loaded, and so are representations of it. Wilkinson knows this and works with those assumptions and codes to varying degrees. It also leads us back to language, as food has long stood in for words and their suggested meaning. Eggplant and peaches now mean something completely different as they are now associated with their emoji equivalents. Place certain foods with women and the stakes are raised. The filmic cliché of a woman dumped and then bingeing on chocolate or cake reinforces stereotypes and is a visual shortcut to understanding. It works the other way too – melons (or fried eggs) are breasts, buns are buttocks and recent reports of abuse of a female academic by male police officers, who told her that her knickers smelt of fish, show we are far from over ribald food “humour” where women are the butt of the joke.

With lightness of touch Wilkinson turns this on its head. Terri-ann sits impishly on her bed resplendent in her favourite red faux fur coat despite the 40°C temperature outside. She proudly holds an enormous zucchini, which she won in a “guess the weight” competition. There is a knowing glance between photographer and sitter, and both are probably reminded of the Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrait Louise Bourgeois (1968), where the artist cradles her phallic sculpture Fillette. The smiles and the similarities of the objects almost nonchalantly held would not have been missed by either of these visually literate, smartwomen.

References to penises can also been seen in Kay with Pasta. She stands in black holding out a rather sad saucepan of pasta for one. Behind her is a treasure trove of objects including a black penis (which I presume is also a bottle opener). You might miss it on first glance as there is a lot going on in the scene. When you spot it, however, it becomes an important interlocker between the backdrop and foreground. Kay’s body shape, and all black clothing, mirrors it as her hips become the balls, and the skinny loose draw strings that hang from her sweatpants – just where a penis would be – throw the whole picture off into a space where “Carry On” humour lifts it. It’s just that the joke is on men for a change.

This is an extract from the book Tough Pleasures by Toni Wilkinson. Photograph: Kay with Pasta by Wilkinson.