Sources of Inspiration
Marie Antoinettes secret garden is a recent source of inspiration for a series of Mannequin prints. I found myself drawn to photograph mannequins. I saw something in their faces. They made me think of younger versions of myself. I chose a flower for each photograph from Marie Antoinettes secret garden at the Petit Trianon. It was a sad time in my personal life due to my husband’s death, and it was lockdown. I liked the connection with flowers and the idea that she created a private realm of pleasure for herself in her garden.
Jean- Baptiste Lemoyne´s Sculpture/Bust titled Comtesse de Feuquieres 1738 on display at the Victorian and Albert Museum, London, commissioned by the Comtesse as a monument to her father was inspiration for my mixed media prints and videos made in 2020-24. A photocopied image of a curtain repeated and joined together by hand to make a whole is a constant in many of these works and a reference to my own grief in mourning my father.
Vivienne Westwood Retrospective Exhibition, Victorian and Albert Museum, London 2004 was inspiration for Reverse, a setn of 75 unique prints, Scarborough Prison Drawing Project 2016. My starting point for Scarborough Prison Drawing Project 2016 was a postcard of a suited female mannequin photographed from behind. The 1940´s style Vivienne Westwood suit reminded me of my grandmother´s wardrobe. I re-photographed and framed the picture in reverse revealing the inside of the frame. I made 100 photocopies of this picture and its fame in red ink and pressed each print with a hot iron. I thought of my grandfather in Sandakan POW camp Malaysia in 1945. He was an Australian soldier captured by the Japanese. He did not come back home. Between January and August 1945 at the camp and along the road to Ranu 1,787 Australian soldiers died. The work was made and exhibited in a prison cell in Dean Road, Scarbough. UK.
Madame Boussieux my neighbour in Arques France from 2004 until 2014 was inspiration for several films. Madame Boussieux looks (2013) 41 sec super 8 mm film transferred to digital film (loop) was shot from my kitchen window. Madame Boussieux looks, the Belgrade I love (2021) consists of 10 framed A4 images on paper with pencil and text and a digital film. The A4 image came from a ‘found’ book called The Belgrade I Love by Korbutovski (1980) and is a photograph of The Moscow Bolshoi Theatre performing Swan Lake at the famous Sava Congressional Centre in Belgrade. Photocopied x 10 in blue ink and drawn on lightly with HB pencil, these images document a moment in time and space. The animated film makes the transition from still to moving image. I am interested in repetition and looping of film sequences.
Moments in time, architecture and everyday spaces remain subjects of interest. Earlier work with photographs focused on aspects of looking such as windows curtains and reflections. Life sized hand made prints were face mounted behind glass and installed in the space of the gallery drawing attention to the space around the image.
