I adore photography. I adore the dark and I adore playing with lighting; so that is exactly what I did. I took multiple series of pictures that I used as development ideas only (some went nowhere, some continued on to be a part of a demo film I had made to text the content that I wished to show in my end work).
The things I ended up using were the things involving the potential harming of my own body. I have reasons for this, stemming from my history in self harm over abuse. But there was another reason for doing this.
I felt like this was a matter regarding life… I felt like abuse of any kind in the home environment, in the place of safety, was essentially a pair of scissors against your lifeline. A knife against your throat. In some cases… actual death. This is where I stopped playing with photography and got to playing with film making instead.
It was to start like this; monsters… well, perhaps not monsters, but rather, creatures that I had always loved to spawn in relation to my work. This one here was actually spawned by my fear; I had always had a thing for wall mounts. The way they stared was almost as if they were honestly always watching you; they showed the potential to be still alive, even. And this is why I decided I was going to make one from wood and mesh, one that had the essentials of taxidermy horror (the fake eyes) but without the shape of one.
The creature itself is not meant to be discerned from mystery. It has been commented on multiple times as being a horse, a pig, or a cow, but never any animal that didn’t belong in the slaughter house. That in itself is something I’m rather curious about… perhaps to others, it looks pitiful. But then again, mounted heads always are rather sad to most.
The idea was to create a room; to create a dwelling space that I wanted to act as both an installation but as something you could also appreciate as a place of pain. I myself have a long history in domestic violence. It was always been a topic that I have wanted to convey in a mixture of mediums, so for me, it was perfect. Spurred on by the like of Tracey Emin as my inspiration for the more sexual side, I really wanted to show others another world; a world where your own ‘Home’ is somewhere you cannot feel safe.
Bizarrely, the moment I thought of the concept of ‘Home’, my mind flew to this piece. A controversial piece created in 1998, the messiness yet effectiveness of the message-carrying it showed was perfect for me; it was dirty, gritty, and yet it held such raw emotions that I had to find a way to bring that into my own work. And this is what I did.
From the wreck that was the old, mouldy innards of a duvet came inspiration drawn from Miss Emin.
Extract from saatchigallery.com;
[ Tracey shows us her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown. By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing shes as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world. ]
I know the space well due to it being a neighbour to my original studio space.
It was big enough for me to do what I wanted, and dark enough to do it effectively. As soon as I saw the broad wall at the back I knew I could project onto it efficiently due to the position of the rooms indent; I was to position the projector just behind the position of the camera to show my film on the space.
As well as this, it would semi hide the video until you were fully into the room…. this was done to keep the sensitive nature of it out-of-view of children that may peer over from my neighbours space.
