January is a month of planning for me. It is the start of our final major project and is a time for me to plan and prepare before starting to put together my degree show piece.
I am spending my time sampling canvas, mixing inks to create a colour palette and sourcing fabric samples and imagery to use in the prints.
I have been reading Maura Reilley’s writings on Ghada Amer, a direct influence on my work. She begins by talking about the ecrite feminine, the idea that the woman must write herself. Female artists are not in the historical art canon and neither in the canon of literature, it is the breakthrough the women must write themselves into history, breaking into the male dominated world. They were presumed that they had nothing they wished to say, but instead they were never allowed the power to speak for themselves. Women therefore must find their voice and make themselves present by writing about women.
This stands as a very prevelant idea for me with my work. I am taking all of the cliche representations of women and how they are associated and represented and juxtaposing them with more modern associations, the less lady-like, unmoral pornographic images. Confronting our ideas of women and femininity and making people see the darker, seedy side to women using their bodies as a means of power through sex.
I am still working on putting my concept into a formal statement but every time I read books for my dissertation my idea develops and progresses, I think my statement would have to change on a daily basis to keep up.
