New York based photographer, Ji Yeo, 29, compiled photos of
post-op South Korean women
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One woman featured in the series, titled Beauty Recovery Room, had
more than 16 procedures in six months A woman covered in bandages, bruises and stitches cuts a forlorn figure as she demonstrates the lengths to which some Asian women will go to achieve a Western look.
For her series of photographs entitled Beauty Recovery Room photographer, Ji Yeo, 29, from Seoul in South Korea, contacted women through an online cosmetic surgery forum and asked permission to take their picture in the days following their procedure.
Around ten women agreed and the results offer a fascinating insight into a society where women are heavily criticised for their appearance, but where obvious signs of cosmetic work are also frowned upon.
Data compiled from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in 2010 confirms that South Korea has the world's highest per capita rate of cosmetic surgery.
Ji Yeo said: 'It is a culture where men are judged on their financial balance sheet and women by their beauty.
'The male-dominated media endlessly reinforces its model of the ideal woman. As a result of these cultural forces South Korea has become a beauty-orientated society where people are judged more for their appearance than their character.'
'Korean women often fall into the trap of trying to live up to an idea personified in the media.
The photographer helped the women to recuperate. She fetched their prescriptions, cooked them soup and drove them to the clinic for check-ups.
One of the women pictured even stayed at Ji Yeo's apartment for a week.
Most of the subjects went to great lengths to have surgery. One woman took out a bank loan for a breast enlargement only to discover she had an underlying condition that meant she could not go ahead.
So instead of paying the money back she had a nose job and her chin narrowed.
Another woman had more than 16 procedures over six months. After undergoing a chin reduction and full-body liposuction, she then had breast enlargement surgery, an operation to widen her eyes and a nose job.
The subject of cosmetic surgery is something Ji Yeo's has wrestled with for a long time. The photographer saw many plastic surgeons in her late teens in the pursuit of completely transforming her body.
But rather than undergoing multiple surgeries, her obsession led to the creation of her Beauty Recovery Room project.
The photographs show the physical cost some South Korean women bear when they succumb to pressures from society to look a certain way.
Ji Yeo, who is now based in New York, says there is a distinction between the women she photographed in Korea and Westerners seeking surgery.
She explained: 'Whereas in America, women often focus on altering their bodies (breast enlargements being the most popular), in Korea most women focus on facial adjustments such as making their eyes bigger and wider, minimising their cheekbones and jaw lines, and making their noses higher and narrower.'
'Whereas sexiness is highly emphasised in America, in Korea, notions of childlike femininity and innocence reign supreme.
'It is this difference that compels me; regardless of geography or body type, women are willing to spend thousands of dollars and endure extreme cuts, bruises, and scarring in order to achieve beauty.
'Of course it is about skin and weight, bone structure and proportion, but more than anything, it is about how much women are willing to sacrifice in search of some measure of perfection.
'I am interested in the visual residue of that sacrifice, and in exploring the cultural differences and similarities made explicit in the process.'
In 2010, Ji Yeo dressed in a skin-coloured leotard and stood in a market in Brooklyn, New York, wearing a sign that read: 'I want to be perfect. Draw on me. Where should I get plastic surgery?'
Beauty and cosmetic surgery is a constant theme in her work and her latest project It Will Hurt A Little, is a catalogue of photographs taken inside plastic surgery clinics in Seoul.
