STATEMENT
My artistic practice
encompasses photography, video, installation and performance. I use photographs
of objects and people to question issues of artificiality and idealisation.
I intend to make it
difficult to distinguish the cut-out photograph from the surrounding scene. In
the first instance of looking I hope to create a state of familiar acceptance
of what the viewer is seeing, followed by an uncanny moment when the oddity of the image is registered, and finally a
state where the implied reading collapses, the cut-out becomes visible to the
viewer and the image is read in new terms.
My artwork forms an
enquiry into the act of looking and being looked at. Referring to
psychoanalysis, phenomenology and feminism I examine my own experience of
becoming an object of sight and also consider the experience the viewer has
when looking at me as a female, and a photographic object. Voyeurism and
exhibitionism intertwine as I attempt to disrupt relationships of power in
purposefully provocative scenes.
The Substitute Series
2007-8
Primarily my artwork is
self-portraiture, but not in the traditional sense. In the work I create a
photographic copy of myself and place it in the real world instead of me. She
becomes a substitute and my visual representative. By producing artwork that
establishes me as an object it could be argued that I produce images that
reinforce stereotypical images of the female body, but by depicting my body as
an object I am able to suggest my presence while confirming my absence. With
apparent exhibitionism I create a substitute that renders my real body
invisible. There is a suspension of disbelief taking place in the viewing
public, as they want to see image and body simultaneously. The overtly sexual
nature of the body compels the viewer into the position of voyeur, only to
reveal itself as an inanimate object. This wilful delusion is inherent to the
medium of photography – the desire to look at a 2-dimensional photograph and
believe in the integrity of the 3-dimensional objects that are suggested by the
surface.
Interloper Series 2008-9
My work is increasingly
concerned with the experience of the viewer and I attempt to define a direct
relationship between the cut-out and the person looking at it. Using digital
video or photography I create the illusion of a domestic scene in which my
cut-out becomes a substitute for me. Rather than depicting an encounter between
a man and a cut-out woman, I have attempted to create a direct relationship
between the cut-out and the spectator. The overtly sexual nature of the body
compels the viewer into the position of voyeur, only to reveal itself as an
inanimate object. I aim to prolong the suspension of disbelief so the
disjuncture between the presence and absence of the body is more pronounced. By
creating photographs that are ambiguous I hope to further explore the
relationship the photographic image has to the animate object. By making
cut-outs that appear lifeless I attempt to integrate them seamlessly into the
real world that surrounds them and play on the notion of the animated
photographic subject.
Visual Pleasure 2009-10
In this series I examine
the artificiality of femininity, and the strategies we employ to create the
illusion of sexuality. In the
photographs the female character is not a simulacra - but the construction of
her as an idealised woman renders her artificial. During the shoot I arrange
myself on a stage with cut-out furniture and attempt to hold them in place. I
struggle to maintain the position I have allocated myself – that of the object
of desire. On first reading these images appear to fall neatly into a
patriarchal sexual language that Mulvey describes, a construction of sexuality
that reduces the female subject into a 2-dimensional representation. But the
woman is isolated in a world of her own making – she has created the fantasy of
body image in order to appeal to the male gaze. This is the female paradox –
she is captive in the panopticon that she built up around herself.
Cut to the Measure of Desire 2010
Cut to the Measure of
Desire is a series of performance installations that respond to feminism and
spectatorship theories; the panopticon overseer and the resulting state of
perpetual exhibitionism. Using the language of symbolism in Dutch Bordeeltjes
painting I create scenes of excessive sexuality. Like the Flemish genre
paintings, each gesture and prop is carefully chosen to symbolise promiscuity,
commerce and desire. Reminiscent of the
traditions of still-life painting and the tableau-vivant, I pose within the
scene - an imperfect being concealed within a 2-dimensional idealised world.
The aim to uphold the illusion of perfection is futile and the codes of desire
crumble under the weight of the specators gaze.
Dawn Woolley trained as a fine art
printmaker at
In 2008 she completed an MA in Photography
at the Royal College of Art and was awarded a prize for excellence by Land
Securities and Art Source. In the spring of 2008 she undertook a three month
studio residency at Cite des Arts in
Recent exhibitions have included; “Start
Your Collection” at The London Art Fair (2009), “Fotomonth” in Krakow, Poland
(2007) and solo exhibitions in South Square Gallery, Bradford (2009), The
Lighthouse Art Centre in Wolverhampton (2006) and Warsaw Project Space in
Manchester (2003). Her artwork is held in a number of private collections in
the
Dawn Woolley currently lives and works in
