There’s Someone in my Head…
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, not because of lock-down but mainly because I’ve been really busy with my MA Fine Art which will end in September 2021. As far as my work is concerned it has changed quite dramatically over the last few months, it wasn’t an intentional decision, it just seems to be the direction in which my MA Fine Art has taken me, pushing me out of my comfort zone and stretching my imagination.
Doing my MA has also given me more options for future projects. I’ve been a photographer for over thirty years and as a photographer you get pigeon holed and are expected to shoot in a certain way because clients book you for your style. Now that I’m working on my own projects and on my own terms, I can expand and use all of the things that I’ve enjoyed using in the past. For instance, I’ve shot and directed videos for various clients, I used to enjoy painting and sculpting. I came to the realisation that I could now pull all of these practices together to form my practice as an artist to use which ever discipline that suits the project that I’m working on.
The project that I’m working on at the moment ‘There’s Someone in my Head’ is a self-portrait installation based on Carl Jung’s four main archetypes, The Self, The Shadow, Anima/Animus and Persona.
The work is made up of sculptures, video, performance, and dialogue. After a lot of experimenting with shop bought mannequins, I decided to make my own hand made sculptures / effigies that I can then project moving portraits of myself onto the effigies to bring them to life, each effigy talks about things related to which ever archetype they are, in a kind of Samuel Beckett style monologue.
Below are some photos and videos of my effigies taken for an online private viewing of a work in progress exhibition Unmasked.
Top Left: The Self ( with a real Xray of my chest for it’s body)
Bottom Left: Anima/Animus (2 heads)
Bottom Middle: Persona
I’m still in the middle of making The Shadow which I have found to be the hardest of them all to make and have been putting it off for months. I wasn’t sure if it should be a piece made with similar materials and aesthetic or whither it should be something totally different or whither it should just be part of the written theory. I decided that The Shadow should be of a similar aesthetic other wise it wouldn’t fit in with the other effigies as a whole installation. The Shadow apart from being the part of you that you don’t want to show to the world is also the control room, the store house of your creativity as well as your sex drive and passion. I have loads of new creative ideas for The Shadow and will look forward to sharing them in the near future.