During the 1990’s, my work with the body moved away from its original political alignment to a quiet empowerment. Yet, a tension remains in these works through a palimpsest of the figure’s past. This selection of work encompasses several series that celebrate attributes of ageing, maturity and experience. These works begin the voice over resistance.
The exhibition Re-Reading Recovery, suggests the re-evaluation of haunting residue for a determined, constructive closure. In these intimate works, the figure is dressed in a thin cotton slip that signifies both a vulnerability and metaphoric armor. Although empowerment is the anticipated narrative, a re-reading discreetly accepts the forward cycle of the Archimedean screw. Many of the works in this series include varied forms of peeling and layering as either the work’s subject or its device. Descriptions of crumbling walls, rubble and detritus remain graphic and painterly – beautiful as both surface and content.
The thin cotton slip from Re-Reading Recovery re-emerges as sculptural slips made from hand-quilted photographic emulsion in the series called Fascia. Colloquially, fascia is a term synonymous with bandage. Specifically, it is a thin sheath of connective tissue that supports muscle groups and internal organs. The sculptures and affiliated works on paper suggest the body in absentia. These works make use of materiality, and a visible manipulation of materials as content, where the delicate wrinkled photo emulsion, for example is akin to ageing skin.
Peonies and the Lido borrows its narrative of youth’s seductive beauty from Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. For this work, I posed for a series of portraits at the Venice Lido. I assumed Dirk Bogarde’s character of the ageing composer in Visconti's cinematic rendition of the book. However, within this reference, I have chosen to maintain my own gender. (My character also has an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson.) Each portrait is flanked by images of peonies at the height of their bloom. The double peonies’ excessive beauty are too heavy for their stems, and thus replace the youthful Tadeuz with an ironic extension. The triptychs hold a mirror to the self as it tempts (and resists) the obsession with an idealization of beauty.