I was unsure where my work was going or what it was meaning. I contacted my peers/people outside of uni to get some help. I was told to reflect on my work I had done from L5 to L6, to see what I liked/didn’t like and what had worked/hadn’t worked, both of those years were experimentation periods. From this I realised I had enjoyed my photography: female sculptures/mirrors/coloured lights, see sketchbook page I spotted from L5 below which made me want to rediscover.
Reflection 29/03/21: Looking back its clear that I was stuck with where to go next, after working with Up Close, I felt like I didn’t want to explore it anymore as I had already done so. Currently I am working completely different to how I would’ve expected with no colour, Sweet Tooth B&W, it’s confrontational which I wanted and outwardly visualises the male dominance that is held over all women/imagery of women being a treat to consume. The B&W tackles inclusiveness at a new angle like Up Close was trying.
Abby a postgraduate student suggested a spider diagram see below. There was artists such as Pipilotti Risk who I researched and was influenced by last year who I had forgotten about – it was a good way to see where I have been/go further. From this I felt that the clay breasts are no longer working for me as I ‘m unsure where to place and install them. Reflection 20/02/21: However! They worked perfectly for Congruous as they were easily adaptable to the kitchen and the use for projection. They didn’t get in the way of the projector, but responded enough to capture its colour. I acknowledged that work for an exhibition can be different to my current practice as it all comes down to what works where.
I began revisiting the bold light colours from L5 which added realism/emphasis on the texture of the bodies. See the images below, Up Close, I wanted to make them more peculiar by adding a fluffy cushions to emphasise the natural body image: a peer thought it was hair dangling down – without the explanation of the image, maybe the viewers wouldn’t know what the cushion was. These different perspectives are adds more weirdness/uncomfortableness to the image. Sinister gaze from above? Could this be a path to explore? See immediate written notes below.
Reflection 29/03/21: I have tackled this weird/sinister approach in my current work Sweet Tooth B&W with battling different angles, colours, materials, perceptions. – Could involve sensory touches? Make the space as uncomfortable as possible.
The soft pink light last year gave the bodies a realistic and a kind approach to the form, but this year, I want to challenge this with how the viewers see the body, not in an idealised way. Yellow isn’t as glamourising as pink, it’s a very unnatural colour to see with the body. Distortion enters through a new way of not just photography but colour as it accentuates the discomfort in the image.
Reflection 15/04/21: The mention of mirrors reminded me of my 1-1 Catinca, we discussed ways to develop Sweet Tooth further and I followed the same approach as Up Close above with the angle – resembles a peep hole/gaze from a space you shouldn’t be looking in.
Angles of the camera through the mirror – show details of the material, unseen visual of the body. An angle which you feel you shouldn’t be seeing/peering into, becomes intimate, a relationship between the woman and her body. – Similar to what Saville explores in Close Contact below. The gripping suggests almost disgust/aggression with the body as she exploits the natural form. I think it adds to this negative relationship we have with the female body if it isn’t idealised. Although the body isn’t pressed against the mirror like Saville, there is still this focus on the skin being displayed in an unnatural way, one we are not used to seeing. There becomes something disturbing about the body, a perception we as humans aren’t as open to as we should be. “Distortions confront and coerce the viewer into an examination of one’s own body and the grotesqueries and beauties inherent within” (Gagosian).
Lacan’s mirror stage theory comes to mind, the body is gazing back through a mirror at itself is scary enough for the woman to see – intense relationship between body/woman which we are looking into. Cindy Sherman also works this way with the use of the gaze and the mirror theory within her work, Untitled Film Still #2. See below, Sherman is an artist I am currently researching for my dissertation and in this piece, there is a women looking at her reflection searching for something else, an idealised form? “Sherman captures the gap between imagined and actual body images that yawns in each of us” (Foster, 1996, p 148), it’s something we cannot deny we do as humans. It also becomes not just about the woman and her reflection, but also the gazer of the women and the gazer of the the image. Becomes this thread of looking which is explored within my photography, peering at the body, the gaze of the woman and her body and the gazing of the image.
Reflection 26/01/21: For my Interim exhibition the use of breast clay sculptures is rather different to these, however the lay out of the work ‘women (breasts) sitting like they are an audience at the cinema, watching themselves (projection)’ – in situ of the domestic kitchen, reminds me of the gaze/the self gaze in Cindy Sherman’s work Untitled Film Still #2, above. Very different format but similar messages.
I created films to allow the audience to feel as though they are doing the looking – like how a cinema acts, audience have the control. I chose to intensify this by creating a wet looking pink aura. What is behind it? Insides? Wet pubic hair? Becomes quite abject, these are all strange thoughts that came to mind. See the images below – I am glorifying the forgotten! The wet looking pink body immediately gave me thoughts of Maisie Cousins work, especially Finger.
Reflection 29/03/21: I am exploring the glorification of women in the cinema and the male gaze, I have changed the way I do it by experimenting with different elements e.g. from Pink But Up Close works with luscious colours, Sweet Tooth B&W works with black and white. Almost suggesting if I am done dancing around these issues of glorifying women being objectified – aim to make a statement?
Cousins is an artist I am also researching for my dissertation, she explores the body in a real and raw way. She proposes the body to the camera in a natural state, “her work actively responds to destructive images aiming to address the damaging misogynistic ideals of beauty” (Boulting, 2017). She shows the natural body e.g. body hair juxtaposed with disgusting materials such as rotten fruit, slim, bugs etc. Things you wouldn’t normally or want to see next to the body. Cousins is breaking down this barrier of the clean and idealised form with grossness! Finger, see below, shows a flower which proposes a vagina with a finger almost poking it, it’s covered in a red liquid, working with the imagery of period blood. Showing the natural female body is bloody and real, brings reality and normality into the frame and back to the female body which is both disturbing but refreshing.
The images below question, is this imagery sexual? Or is the figure laying and gazing at itself? Or back at the viewer? A piece of feedback said, ‘the red/pink lights scream the gazing of the red light district’. Was this my intention?
I aim to take these images further through projection as that is something I have also really enjoyed doing this year in L6 which I discovered in my reflection – place projection in different environments: bathroom? Projection helps change the appearance of the environment they are in. Reflection 18/02/21: I projected these in the bath for Lockdown and Light submission and they created an immersive space, changing the water, the bath tub and stretching the body.
