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Beautiful Boy
The beauty of a boy can be fleeting in nature. This film explores the
tension of a boy changing into a man and references the feminine as well
as the use of the ideal body within art to subvert tradition.
Masculinity had previously defined the male as simply being 'not female'
but modern attitudes now suggest that males are valued for expressing
their emotions and it is acceptable for men to have a sensitive side.
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Excess
Food is a huge issue in contemporary Western society, with ubiquitous
cheap supermarkets, toxic fast food, widespread obesity amongst the
young, mountains of wasteful packaging and chemical farming methods
adopted globally. In the midst of this greed it is paradoxical that food
disorders such as anorexia and bulimia have grown. Women's feelings
about beauty and sexuality are intrinsically linked to their weight, so
using a male to demonstrate this theme highlights the absurdity of it
and also brings to our attention how men are also being drawn into the
'beauty myth'. |
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Venus 2006
The female nude was once the ideal form in Western art and the Venus
video installation makes reference to this, in particular the paintings
of Venus at her Toilet (The ‘Rokeby’ Venus) by Velasquez and Manet’s
Olympia. Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze and ‘to be
looked-at-ness’ is ironically presented by the girls in the video, who
wear modern popular-culture glamour outfits as they playfully finish by
making the audience the subject. The film is projected in the classic
ornate frame and is accompanied by 17th century chamber music by Corelli. |
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Untitled (Beach Robot)
The robot with phallic shaped balloons and girl in bikini throwing darts
at him on a beach references gender roles, power relationships and
stereotypes in a playful manner. This is a collaborative project with fellow art
graduate Monika Lis who studied at Winchester University School of
Art. |
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Family Portrait
This film is a ‘living portrait’ of the artist's family. The
artist and her sisters dressed in their deceased mother’s clothes and
lipstick pose for the camera. The clothes are their mother’s 1960’s
black petticoats and the lipstick is Max Factor’s ‘teasing pink’ – a
shade she wore all her life. By using her possessions the daughters
again feel close to their mother. The
pose is artificial and the passage of time is acute as the subjects look
into the lens and we recognise their feelings of awkwardness. As they
stare solemnly at us, we too begin to feel awkward, perhaps because we
empathise with their emotions or perhaps because we feel awkward about
intruding on this family ritual, the final
act before the daughters finally accept their mother's death. |
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Stepford Wives
This piece is a comment on the socially acceptable feminine identity of
the late 20th century which has been to create a respectable nuclear
family accompanied by money and possessions. Girls have been trained to
be selfless and helpful, suppressing some qualities which could never be
displayed for fear of negative judgement. Achievements of the 'good
girl' have been usually for the benefit of others. Girls are still
implicitly trained from a very young age to be rescued by a 'prince'.
Total submission is then complete. This has created an internal struggle
for many women as doing something for one's own benefit feels wrong. |
