Reflect on the pieces of work discussed in this project in your learning log and do some further research of your own.
Here are a few questions you might ask yourself:
• How do these images make you feel?
• Do you think there’s an element of narcissism or self-indulgence in focusing on
your own identity in this way?
• What’s the significance of Brotherus’s nakedness?
• Can such images ‘work’ for an outsider without accompanying text?
• Do you think any of these artists are also addressing wider issues beyond the
purely personal?
Make some notes in your learning log.
Francesca Woodman
I am undecided on whether Francesca Woodman’s images are autobiographical or not? I think that because of Woodman’s suicide at a young age we are compelled to see these pictures as the evidence of a troubled mind. I see her images as experimental, an exploration of herself and womanhood among other things. The best muse would be herself as she could pose exactly as she needed and would not need to rely on others. Do I see these as narcissistic? Unfortunately as Woodman died so young and before she was artistically recognised it is hard to tell if she perhaps suffered from a narcissistic personality disorder which could explain her suicide following the rejection of a grant application and the demise of a romance. If that was the case then we could in fact view these images as autobiographical. But then Woodman also took images that did not include herself, these seem to focus on angles and composition so again I am back to the assumption that these images were exploratory rather than auto biographical.
The images of herself take on various roles so we cannot really see which is an honest portrayal of herself, they are a performance , a fantasy rather than a reality. Many of her works are untitled so the viewer is left to interpret and also relate to them. Maybe if titles had been present we might not assume that they showed her state of mind.
“It is difficult not to read Woodman’s many self-portraits – she produced
over five hundred during her short lifetime – as alluding to a troubled
state of mind. She committed suicide at the age of twenty-two.”
(Bright, 2010, p.25)
Elina Brotherus
Looking at Elina Brotherus’s website and her model series I am surprised how closely some of the images resemble Francesca Woodman’s. Model studies 5, 6 and 8 are the most obvious of these.
https://elina-brotherus.squarespace.com/photography/#/model-studies/
Interestingly the text on the website also states:
Model Studies is not about personal stories nor a documentary about someone’s life. The images have been constructed for visual reasons.
Therefore can we really view it in the context of Auto biographical portraiture?
Her Annunciation series differs in that it catalogues her own journey with IVF, As I look through the images I feel her sadness and defeat but I am acutely aware that reading the back story before the images has helped to form my opinion. The nakedness in these images is relevant as it looks at her body letting her down. Without the back story would I have read them the same? I think I would have sensed the loneliness and repetition but not perhaps the complete story.
Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing’s series Album is an interesting look at portraiture and is in essence an auto biographical portrait which explores what makes us. She uses disguise to explore her place in her family and the relationship she has to it. Wearing uses masks of family members portraits in which she then takes an image of herself behind the mask with just her own eyes showing. This self portraiture seems to explore how the family before us and around us shape who we become but also interestingly I am sure that Wearing might have felt alien behind the mask, we are never the same at any one point in our lives and an older wearing in a younger mask might show this. Could she see her mother in herself or herself in her mother?
Wendy Rose Context & Narrative 