Louise Bourgeois and Boris Mikhailov at Tate Modern – July 2016
Red has already featured in my work as I mentioned in my blog on 13 July. It was made even more significant when I visited Tate Modern during the summer break. For Louise Bourgeois ‘red’ translated as fear; she felt vulnerable and remained fearful of many things throughout her life.
For me red, is the colour of connections and the idea of making contact with my natural family that I know a little about, but feel I relate to in many ways because of certain features in our characters. Red also links me with another part of my family that I know exists, but who don’t know (I assume) anything about me.
I have added some images of some experimental work which feature the colour ‘red’ that signify loss, ties that have been severed and truths that often lay hidden…
There was also an exhibition of Boris Mikhailov’s powerful images entitled ‘Red’. A diverse group of eighty-four colour photographs taken between 1968 and 1975 – every one of the images containing the colour red. See http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mikhailov-red-t13358
In July I paid an interesting visit to The Foundling Museum, to glean ideas for my project.
Definition of a foundling: orphan, waif, stray, ragamuffin, urchin, outcast
Museum information:
A token was left by the mother with her baby as proof of identity for when, and if she came back to reclaim her child.
The baby’s basic details were entered onto an admission ‘billet’.
I purposely visited the museum so that I could see the exhibition ‘Found’ curated by artist Cornelia Parker. It was a thought-provoking display of diverse objects donated by over sixty artists interspersed with the museum’s exhibits. You can see more information about the exhibition on the museum website at http://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/events/found/ The one particular piece that stood out for me was ‘Iron Baby’ by Antony Gormley, evoking the vulnerability of nature – here the mother’s breast is replaced by the floor.
Looking at adoption from the birth mother’s perspective gives the adoptee an idea of the range of circumstances and emotions of mothers who either readily gave up their babies for adoption or who were, and still are, forced or bullied into giving them away.
In the 1950s the shame that an unmarried mother brought to their families surpassed any consideration off the pregnant mother, in many situations young mothers were disowned by their families and were never reconciled. If they did return, they were never encouraged or allowed to speak of what happened to them. For many women in the past the burden of their ‘guilty secret’ was carried to the grave.
An article written appearing in the Guardian newspaper in October 2007 suggested that mothers were further humiliated by being ‘…encouraged to buy a pack of baby clothes to hand over to the adoptive parents of their child’.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/oct/31/familyandrelationships.women
I have made nine blankets each measuring nine inch that signify the emotional suffering of the woman during her nine months of pregnancy and the sense of loss in having to give the baby away at the end of that time. Even among those who didn’t want to keep their baby they too, underwent a degree of loss.
Context for the work comes from two contemporary artists; Tracey Emin and her sewn applique and American artist Mary Kelly who used Latin text in her working titles between 1973 and 2010. By combining these two aspects and using red thread to attach the words written on the canvas patches I have represented the blood ties and trauma.
From the painting of the seed (See 22nd April) I have made a linocut of the ‘veins’ of the shell of the physalis seed and experimented with printing.
Printing the seed onto enlarged photocopies of old photographs…
Red is the colour…it is a constant reminder of what connects all life as well as linking families to each another and is symbolic for those individuals trying to re-connect with their origins.
In relation to origins my seed idea is still on-going. In this mini project, I have made seeds from air dried clay, painted them red and then placed them inside seed pods which have already shed their seed.
