Jessica Warren
Within my artistic practice, I find that using my body as a medium of exploration and experimentation is vital in embracing the idea that art, lived experience, and the world around me are all deeply interconnected. Through this approach, I am able to incorporate the effects of these elements on the way my body and mind react to primitive contact with the spaces I inhabit. In my art practice, I often use improvisation as a tactic, claiming the unplanned as moments of chaos and occasional beauty, which are typically captured through digital formats.The nude form allows my body to be connected without restriction to the environment through bodily senses. When I am undressed, I no longer feel like myself, but rather experience a sense of overwhelming power and a disconnect from societal structures of human behaviour. When I take away aesthetic things, like clothes or makeup, I feel united with womanhood and a connection to all women. Through my art, I am able to express and explore the complex relationships between my body, gender, and the environment.
When documenting through photography, my bare body reclaims, interferes, and assaults the space, taking the viewers' attention away from peaceful environments to shocking interventions. This allows space for the audience to explore new and often ambiguous narratives. My nude body becomes a tool of attraction for the audience and a tool of embeddedness for me, allowing myself and the audience to be hyper-aware of the space and context in which I am engaging. This leaves space for them to question what is going on and why. My nude body rejects the male gaze by embodying the female gaze. I am not existing to look good for anyone. When performing to a camera, I am no longer thinking about what I look like, but rather how my body interacts with the space and the ideas that I am trying to express.
'I am not existing to look good for anyone. When performing to a camera, I am no longer thinking about what I look like, but rather how my body interacts with the space and the ideas that I am trying to express.' This one statement, above all esle, is what resonates for me. I am often uncomfortable with my own nakedness. As a woman, and as an ex Addiction Counsellor, I am also acutely aware of just how many women (including me), feel unsafe, insecure, and vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about you taking away the security of clothing and laying yourself bare...I looked up the meaning of brave, and one online dictionary tells me that it means: ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage. "he was a brave soldier", or to endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behaviour) without showing fear. "these six men braved the rough seas"... Women it seems are invisible even as they are 'braving it out' and challenging perceptions around art and nudity.
I also find myself wondering about using the naked form to do the challenging...I wonder how many men use their own nakedness in art to represent vulnerability, or to allow 'space for the audience to explore new and often ambiguous narratives'. Does the word nude, mean something different to a woman than to a man within an art setting?
Wide range of thoughts here
Deleteon brave: brave little children are rewarded with this title for not crying when they tumble and in growing up, boys are manipulated into a belief system that has identified cowardice as a failing. The men's liberation groups of the 80's helped me see that this was a myth and what they pointed out was a rational response in not taking on unnecessary risk to benefit some higher authority which of course sat back and milked the benefits.
on nakedness: You write 'how many men use their own nakedness in art to represent vulnerability, or to allow 'space for the audience to explore new and often ambiguous narratives'.? Though I can say nothing of new and ambiguous narratives, I realised that there were gaps in the authenticity of my approach to the Other which could only be resolved by the loss of clothing as armour, and the acceptance of vulnerability through nakedness https://bit.ly/3KfyUkL. One of my inspirations would be John Coplans as a self-portraitist of the naked body. and one of my fondest memnories of my MFA year came when I hung some of my naked self-portraits, to be greeted by a 'urrrk' sound effect from one of the right-on young on the course. Clearly the aged male body probably signalled as much to them as the thought of their parents still having SEX.
finally onto naked or nude: When writing in English I value the punch of words drawn from our Germanic language roots so Old English nacod does it for me. Somebody again once pointed out the alliteration in nude, rude,crude,lewd...
I think the meaning of brave is purely personal and related to each person with separate situations. Brave can be a negative word, in terms of the word taking over the actuality of a persons experience. ‘They were so brave going through that’, can take away from the reality of what may have happened.
DeleteI think bravery comes later, after a situation has been assessed. Being brave is to be able to open up and talk about a situation that at the time, you could have been anything other than brave.
"The nude form allows my body to be connected without restriction to the environment through bodily senses. When I am undressed, I no longer feel like myself, but rather experience a sense of overwhelming power and a disconnect from societal structures of human behaviour."
ReplyDeleteThis really struck a chord with me, especially in work I have done outdoors where the skin acts as a receptor to temperature, breeze, moisture, texture and discomfort. We're so cut off from all these sensations in our daily lives.