Beth Ditto

As I write this, A2-sized free copies of The International Herald Tribune are being handed out on Marylebone Road, London, with Beth Ditto plastered across the front. She is standing nude in profile with pink fabric covering her below the stomach and her name in black writing from the newspaper typeface covering her nipples. Her hair is a flaming red and her eyes are surreanly closed, lavished in sultry eye make-up, her lips a deep red.

The curious thing is, if she were Kate Moss, she wouldn't be causing such a stir. It is because there is so much of her flesh that the image is more shocking and overtly sensual than if she were a size-zero catwalk model. The image is a mass of contradictions - mixing feminine with butch, covert with overt, sophistication with brash, conventional with unconventional and challenging notions of beauty. Could any other artist be capable of portraying so much in just one image? Beth Ditto rocks.