Stephie Key’s first ever interview
John Key’s daughter talks exclusively about her dad’s job and her hyper-sexual artistic alter-ego Cherry Lazar, ahead of her Paris exhibition.
I know that one day the point I am making with my art will be more important than what my parents did for a job
JUST AFTER midnight, the phone rings. The voice on the other end is modulated and hard to define, the international accent of supermodels and the very well-travelled. ‘‘Hi,’’ she says. ‘‘It’s Stephie Key.’’
From Paris, the prime minister’s daughter confirms the receipt of an email and the promise to respond to questions about her art – and her life as Cherry Lazar, the hypersexual alter-ego who wears latex and wigs, lays sushi on her naked body and, this week, stages her first public photographic exhibition.
Love the work, loathe the work: there is serious artistic intent here. A practice that is structured, intellectualised and a world away from the titillating headlines it garners.
‘‘I make the photos whilst fully aware that the consequences will be tougher for me than most kids,’’ says Key. ‘‘But I have never taken my family’s position into consideration in terms of the types of images that I take.
‘‘I moved to another country and changed my name. I am just living my own life and making my own work, even if it is at odds with that of my family’s.’’
The photographs – Key as a mermaid, dominatrix, and ukulelestrumming fantasy babe – are not, she says, acts of rebellion.
‘‘Perhaps it can be seen as that of the character of ‘first daughter’; the role I never fit and felt I could never fill. But rebellion is not the intention of the work. My parents are very supportive, even if they would prefer I didn’t dress up in sushi or slutty bride get-up.’’
Definitions of female beauty are different everywhere, says Key. ‘‘But the sense of self-confidence and power is universal. I try to tap into that in my work, because I believe there is no stronger way to express my pride of being a woman. And the pride that I have for the whole race of women globally.’’
Cherry Lazar was born when Key was 17. She’d left home to finish high school in France.
‘‘I was nervous that new acquaintances would Google me and find out about my family, so I wanted a new name and it stuck.’’
She took her maternal grandmother’s maiden name Cherry, and that of her paternal grandmother, Lazar. ‘‘It’s a happy coincidence it fit so well.’’
Now, Cherry Lazar is ‘‘the extension of myself that I create my work through. In my eyes, ‘Stephie Key’ makes none of the work, and it frustrates me when people give that name credit for the images’’.
Cherry, says Key, is probably more free-spirited than her creator.
‘‘It would be so horribly boring if I was playing a character that was a direct reference to myself.’’
She is working on a film script about her alter-ego and hopes to start shooting in September.
Stephanie Key is a sister to Max, 19, and the elder child of Bronagh and John. She was a teenager in 2008, when her father became prime minister of New Zealand. She’s there in the victory photos – blonde bob, National Party blue shirt. Today, she’s 22, two weeks away from completing her third year at the Paris College of Art, one more year from graduation in the city she says ‘‘makes me feel like I can be the best possible version of myself’’.
She says classmates had ‘‘no idea’’ who her family was until 2013 when her photographic art (including the now infamous shots of the first daughter naked, bar some strategically placed sushi and an octopus) was revealed – by then, she says, it didn’t matter.
‘‘I had already made friends, and there are other, far more exciting, people at my school.
‘‘It’s not that I’m very secretive about it, I just don’t think it’s normal or necessary to go around telling the world what my parents do for a living.
‘‘I believe that no matter what field I choose to go into there will always be political baggage or the ‘she only got there because her father is lalala’ excuse. I worried a lot about that as a teenager but now I’m at a point in my life where I know it’s out of my control so I might as well just ride the wave.
‘‘I know who I am as an artist and the message that I have and I know that one day the point I am making with my art will be more important than what my parents did for a job.’’
Key counts second-wave British and American feminists of the 1970s among her influences but says, aesthetically, she’s drawn to the likes of James Bidgood (high fantasy and camp), Pierre et Gillies (controversial for nude footballer photographs), David LaChappelle (kitsch pop surrealism) ‘‘and just bad Tumblr art in general’’.
She also has an obsession with La Cicciolina – politician, porn star, and ex-wife of American superstar artist Jeff Koons. ‘‘I think she’s fantastic.’’
Public scrutiny of Key’s art has, so far, been confined to what she’s revealed via Instagram, but she also scripts, directs and acts in films, and creates live performance. She draws, writes poetry and is working on large-scale paintings out of her makeup – lipstick kisses, eye shadow, etcetera. The Cherry Lazar images, she says are ‘‘in many ways autobiographical, as they involve characters that I maybe had a part of in me, or that I know – but the sexual nature and the fantasy element all definitely come from that detached observer camp’’.
Here’s how it works: ‘‘I create a story in my head and draw everything, exactly how the photo will look. Then I have to organise all the costumes; I make a lot of wigs and all the latex costumes.’’
She shoots her studio selfies solo, her camera on a tripod, run off a remote hidden in her hands. The magic, she says, happens in postproduction.
‘‘I paint over the subject’s skin and hair, to make them look more fake. In Photoshop I build backdrops out of the images I’ve taken and found/stolen photos. Then slap it all together. Et voila!’’
Key says her work is ‘‘celebratory and ironic’’, rather than sexy.
‘‘I believe sexy comes with a lot of elegance that my work is lacking. I think that my work is funny. Humour is so important to me . . . I don’t find my work sexy at all; I think it’s far too exaggerated and cartoony for that. It is indeed centred on sexuality, sensuality and the female body – mostly my own – and it is always done only on my own, or the model’s own terms. But, admittedly, my girls tend to look like rubber sex dolls.’’
There’s not enough fun in the art world, says Key. ‘‘Everyone takes themselves too seriously. And whilst there is absolutely a place for cerebral art, in fact it’s a necessity, I think sometimes going to a gallery, and making work, should be like going to Disneyland.’’
Viewers at Friday’s Vernissage opening of her show Cherry on Top, in an experimental gallery in the Jonas Bowman jewellery store, should prepare for ‘‘live performance, food, music and of course the work’’.
Key says she’s always been creative. ‘‘But honestly, I still don’t consider myself an artist. I took my first photographic self-portrait when I was 12 in our garden. It’s awful, I’m dressed as a French maid and I Photoshopped in an Alice in Wonderland tea set.’’
At Auckland’s St Cuthbert’s College, she was a Newmarket Young Designer Fashion Award finalist (pink brogues, turquoise and pale purple mini-dress). A Year 11 photographic work is, reportedly, held in the college’s art collection.
‘‘Since I was a teenager I knew my only legitimate career options were become an artist or become a rock star.
‘‘And because everybody knows how useful an arts degree is, I should probably start working on the rock star thing.’’
I know that one day the point I am making with my art will be more important than what my parents did for a job.
Stephie Key