doll (cell)
c-type print, enamel paint on glass (framed), 38 x 30.5 cm
2008

the doll is a photographic composite of images appropriated from magazines. the source images are details of naked bodies, torsos, limbs and faces, merged and blurred into a shifting, dynamic form, as if there are many aspects of the doll body co-existing within the same space. the doll represents a catalysing object, that seeks to transform the horror of the flesh (impermanence, decay, suffering) into something translucent beyond the world of form. pornography is re-engineered towards eroticism into a diffuse state, so as to be able to reconcile and heal the internal and the external forms of the body.

the background is a photograph of the cellar of my house. it is an old, dark, damp place. in the imagined reality of the doll, it is a laboratory, a cell, a quiet, still place. (out of picture) there are objects here that perform some unknown alchemical functions; a jar of formaldehyde, a birds nest with a bird wing inside…

the white lines painted on the inside surface of the frame’s glass represent the internal organs of the doll, abstracted into forms that imply relationships between organs, bone structures, and the curves of the body. the lines are based on a pen drawing made over a photograph of a nude in a magazine, created in a semi-automatic, intuitive way, trying to describe invisible abstract forms that lie within the body form.

~

the glass surface is both the transparent skin of the doll (or it’s projected skin) or the enclosing surface of the cell in which doll rests. the doll and the cell are the same. symbols painted on the glass are the forms of the doll without substance.

[in a version, a grid is also painted / scratched into the glass, the grid defines the cell, that which both anchors and constrains the map of the doll]

flesh is internal organs within the skin – and the internals have their own surfaces, skins. flesh is the point at which fluidity and liquid forms meet solidity and the boundary conditions that define a space. fixed but fluid space.

our skin is porous, breathing, so in a sense it is transparent.

doll is constructed as a composite of bodies, from this nakedness doll becomes solid (liquid and gaseous also, seeking an equilibrium between all these states). doll absorbs pornography so that it can make visible what pornography cannot – the transient, evolution and decay, insight vs the superficial). doll functions as a catalyst, transforming raw images, separating, abstracting truth from appearance.

in doll there is an attempt to reconcile the 3 aspects of the body (this is the catalysing function):

- the body form, the shape and movement of the body
- the hidden internal mechanisms of the body
- the body as symbol (eroticism, life, death, growing)

doll (cell) is also about the realisation that we are constrained not only by the body, but by the space in which the body rests.

cell is about reconciling the aspects of enclosing space:

- a space which is peaceful, quiet and still
- a torture space, pain and suffering
- a space in which we rest, seek refuge, a personal space
- a space which is forced upon us, like a cage

in these pictures, is doll at rest or in pain? is she trying to escape the space, or move deeper into it (absorb it)?

» archive