Heather Boon

Essay Three

Contextual studies

Identity

Word Count 983

Choose two artists whose work addresses identity.  Discuss a single work by each artist.  Explain the ideas each artist is trying to represent and how they are expressed.

I have chosen to write about artists who work with identity. The word ‘identity’ means a set of behavioural or personal characteristics which are individually recognizable. Identity in Art means the art can be geopolitical, ethnic, class, gendered, generational, institutional, or personal. I’ve decided to write about Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas.

Emin’s work shows a lot of confessional art and Lucas’s work shows sexual fantasies with deformed objects. I think they match the topic ‘identity’ well.

I’m looking at a piece of Emin’s work called ‘My Bed’ which she created in 1998. It was set up as a installation at the Tate Modern in London. She redesigned her own bed showing her personal space in all of its embarrassing glory. She shows a story to engage with her viewers. The story tells of her personal living habits and the shame she lives with. It expressed Emin's sluttish personality, the detritus of a life which reflected her own. It was, above all, confessional. It consisted of her own bed; stained sheets, fag butts, empty alcohol beverage bottles, tampons, a pregnancy test, blood and worn knickers. She shows feminine power and stereotypes in today’s society. This shows a relationship between Art and Politics. Viewers thoughts were mainly of shock when confronted by this piece of work. Her work was inspired by not getting up from her bed for several days due to suicidal depression brought on by her own relationship difficulties.

Emin falls under identity because she wants to show her viewers her feminist art work to show female power and influence that is relative to the here and now but which has always been there in the past, waiting on the sidelines to come forward and be recognised.. The viewer can see Emin has been influenced by people such as Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele because of the gender and sexual preferences and their meanings within nationality, ethnicity, politics, and religion.  All these seem to have some impact on the meaning of art.

Lucas’ art is based on self portraits. I’ve been looking at one of her portraits called ‘Self Portrait with Fried Eggs’. In this photograph, as in all her self-portraits, Lucas adopts a typically masculine pose. She looks confident and in control, staring straight into the camera. The two fried eggs on Lucas's chest are a crude parody of the female body. The artist has used a similar tactic in the objects she makes, representing male and female genitals using everyday objects in a humorous manner.

Lucas’ work falls under identity because her work shows feminist sexuality showing the power of women, like her self. The approach of feminists is constantly changing. This can be compared to that of the image of womankind. Women are not static beings. Women, like men, are being molded through each experience. She shows that women are composed of many faces such as class, sexual preference, race, and religion and that stereotyping them as the mother and nurturer is wrong and does not explain fully what it is to be a woman. Hence she uses the breasts as a parody of a purely female part and uses eggs to represent fertility in a humorous and somewhat scathing manner.

Her typical masculine poses give the viewer a full in the face slap of the feminine against the alpha male. Using her facial expressions, props and masculine body positioning she displays the typical male sexual aggressive genital display which most men, particularly younger men, primitively use to attract the opposite sex and show their virility. This could be because she is struggling personally with inner demons, indicated to me by her work as a whole and perhaps she feels her life would be easier if she was a man.  Role playing in this way allows her perhaps to express her innermost feelings and desires.  Alternatively, she could just be portraying the suppression females have had to endure over the years and is indicating a woman can be viewed as just as aggressive, important and viable as a man if they take on a masculine persona and ‘walk the walk’.  I feel she is a vulnerable person because viewing her work gives me the impression I am looking at someone who is not happy with who she is and who is struggling to find her meaning for existence.

Although Lucas portrays genitalia in a humorous way, I feel there is more to the message than that.  I think she is trying to portray that the difference in genitalia is all that is different between a man and a woman and that possession of a penis does not make for a superior human.  She is trying to show women are just as capable and important as men and is making fun of the assumption that a woman is less of a person and the ‘weaker’ sex.  Food is organic and eventually rots away if left and I feel Lucas uses food to portray genitalia because once the difference between the sexes has rotted away then what is left becomes the true human, equal in all other ways.

Perhaps another reason for Lucas using food could be she feels the male viewer may be less offended by the concept of a woman being an equal if there is a humorous element to her work.  However, it could simply be she chooses to use food in its hidden ‘toilet humour’ way, such as using fried eggs which are used in British humour to insult a woman with small breasts.

Lucas parody outlook on sex, violence, deformities and sensationalism between the sexes and the pieces of art themselves is a unique and thought provoking way of expressing the difference between the sexes and underlining the similarities between the two.  It challenges the concept of femininity and masculinity identities and says what really lies beneath is the same once those preconceptions have melted away.

Contexual studies, essay 2

Heather Boon

Liz B

Word C:513

Essay Two

This term I have been looking at the artist called Robert Ryan. He specialises in collage, paper cut and screen printing.  Ryan did his foundation at Birmingham Poly, fine art at Trent Poly and printmaking at RCA. Ryan has been called an illustrator, a graphic designer and a artist but he himself doesn’t like to pigeon-hole his work and say’s that he’s happy to just have his name spelt right. Printmaking was initially his first love but when he no longer had access to a printmaking studio he started searching for something new to do and began to work with folding paper. To start with he did symmetrical cut outs but then he started to cut out words as well. He uses a 15 or 10a Swann Morton  scalpel blade to craft his work. Sometimes he uses laser cutting techniques to cut wood, acrylic and steel. He also uses this technique for things such as show invitations and more recently when he was asked to dress Liberty’s Christmas window. He say’s he loves post- war pre 60’s illustration and has been influenced by this and people such as Eric Gill. He likes the tailored aspect of his work as he feels it has a timeless quality and sharper silhouette.  His work is influenced by his emotions and what is happening around him at the time. He looks at other people and tries to emphasise with them, using their perceived emotions in his work. He likens it to being a writer and puts himself in their shoes. The story-telling that is present in much of Robert's work is perfectly illustrated by his recent book, 'This Is For You', the dreamy tale of a man who has lost his place in the world who takes a magical papercut journey of rediscovery.

Ryan’s work interests me in the sense that he’s work with collage, I think that collages works well in my work as I can keep layering my work to build up texture and form. Ryan doesn’t tend to use a lot of colour in one piece of work, and sticking to a limited colour draws my attention to the initial thought of the idea of people’s emotions or feelings. Ryan said that he was drawn in the first instance to express himself though printmaking and for similar reasons I feel the same pull to this form of creative expression.

 I have made a collage using a newsprint message just like Ryan did but in my own words ‘I think I love you’. Ryan’s idea was that the words read ‘I think that you are gorgeous’. I used cardboard underneath to make the cut out more interesting. I found his idea very thoughtful and creative. The idea of bold black letters on a black and white background sets the focus on the text and draws the eye to the negative spaces. My work is a story within a story showing new thoughts and words by recycling words and adding new thoughts.  This creates a different dimension to the original words which gives them new meaning.

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                                                                               Heather Boon

                                                                               Liz B

                                                                               Word count-513

  

                         Deformed Dolls

 

Hans Bellmer, La Poupee 1933-1936

Hans is a surrealist photographer and has used surrealism in this photo by taking two mannequins and joining their lower halves into a sexual pose in a wood. In the background, a dark shadow of man lurks, presumingly to represent the male lust and passion towards the distorted female form. As a female, I look at this photograph and it has a certain shock factor due to its lack of respect towards women and its implication women are no more than sexual vessels and playthings for men. Maybe she’s a prostitute, clothes on the floor, the sexual pose, maybe she is a woman he has ‘stolen’ but her helplessness and vulnerability is clear for all to see.  I like the way he’s uses the grungy colour woods letting most of my attention focus onto the doll and the colourful clothing on the floor. But the man is still there waiting to take advantage when the lens is gone…

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still 1993

Cindy’s work refers to herself, being the model, the director. Although these are Cindy’s still photos the photographer is unknown when she is modelling herself. Or she could be using a shutter with a self timer. The reasons behind this ‘unknown title’ is because Cindy is trying to portray her own self and essence into her work so we are seeing her soul but shielded behind a veil of anonymity.

In this particular still photo this doll reminds me of a child’s doll such as ‘Barbie’ or ‘Cindy’ but in  a bigger real life size form. The section of black looks like a dress, the straps are falling off the dolls shoulder. Also wearing trousers the feet look real. This dolls looks out of proportion. Her legs are way too long for her body, is the real Cindy under the dress? The lady inside of her chest makes me think that the lady you see is staring right at us but won’t show emotion until you look inside of her what she really feels like. To me she shows like she’s I’ll or got a deformity maybe she portrays special needs.

Both photos

The artist both use dolls body pieces and put them together, kind of like ‘Frankenstein’s creature’.

Both artists portray women but Bellmer concentrates on the female physical sexual vulnerability and Sherman portrays the vulnerability of female emotions. Both to the extreme of these forms. Sherman is interested in portraying herself through her work, unselfishly, openly and truly whilst Bellmer is intent on exploitation of women and sees them as purely beings of entertainment; to be used and manipulated, bent to his will and for his enjoyment. One artist empowers whilst the other enslaves. Each artist uses form to shock the senses of the person viewing their work; Bellmer with deformation of body parts and Sherman showing raw emotion the naked eye might miss in the split second of reality.  The real and true difference between the two artists is that one deals in hidden realism and the other in hidden fantasy.