Documentation photographs by Leah Weir

5- Minute Read: Reflection and Process

‘She Named Herself Spot Willows’ is an artwork that explores the expansive world of self-assemblage. Before us is the mysterious presence of a creature and a creator. The Creature, the sculptural figure, stands under a spotlight and shares the space with society eye to eye. Her body is adorned with feminine parts and costumed with lipstick and nail polish, reminiscent of traditional beauty standards. Behind her is the Creator. These film photographs feature myself playing as the Creator. The role of the creator is evident through the image setting and props. She’s tense and observant.. yet stands powerfully. The creator is distanced from the physical realm by the photography medium but breaks the fourth wall with a piercing gaze to the room and the creature.

While these characters are separated, their relationship is noticeably complex. The personas are spawned as a creative self-investigation and they exist to represent something… my relationship with myself. As a young woman, the value I place on self-discovery is high and I often wonder about the rebelling and the embracement of self-identity I face. Even during high school, I went by fake names as I wanted to become someone. I wanted to be something. And what I've discovered throughout my growth is that I can be anything. The mystical adventure of being alive allows me to be monstrous, enjoying the tension of the constructed realities of being a feminine woman. Having the ability to construct my sense of self, gives me power and energises my creativity.

When beginning this work, I dived into rabbit holes of medium experimentation, such as hand-stitching into wood and casting objects and body parts. Intuitively, I was attracted to physical mediums. Through research, I spent time analysing assemblage art, dada, the work of Hans Bellmer and even the likes of performance artists. Carolee Schneeman provided great material to analyze as she explores identity, specifically a feminine one. But I was also interested in Matthew Barney’s series of Drawing Restraint works. Some of which document him in the process of drawing in which his body takes centre stage. To his more cinematic fantastical representations. Which shows creatures and the human form in a theatrical spectacle. To summarise the connections between my research and experimentations, I am interested in the evidence and the nature of creating in itself. In the creature before us, every detail of the process is visible down to every stitch, chip, knot and nail. The immersion of my own body emphasizes these features, drilling my physical expression into the work. The puppeteering of my actions created a performative relationship to the work. Smothering my body in plaster and raw materials, I consciously subjected my body to painful processes, even submerging my face into unsettling darkness. In this final work, the staging, posing and expression of subjects, extend beyond the process and into the gallery environment.

During the creation, it was important to reflect and research my ideas further. A few specific readings include: 

Metanoia: Rhetoric, authenticity and the transformation of the self by Adam Ellwanger.

The persistence of the human: consciousness, meta-body and survival in contemporary film and literature by Matthew Escobar.

And the most influential piece for this work was Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers and Creators of All Kind. Compiled by L Adam Mekler.

Other points of interest include, the body as an object, metamorphosis, dualism and even the mythology of the sphynx was analyzed.