Kelly Mark: I Really Should.

I love the statement "I really should." There's a moment in Sex and the City where Carrie says "why are we shoulding all over ourselves?" The should implies an entanglement with something we are not in control of. But here, Mark is taking control, talking about all of the proper things she should do but doesn't. She is not a lady. She is an individual, selfish at times. Brave and independent in others. I wish I could hear the whole piece.

In my sounds pieces (which I have yet to upload to the web) I am working with the statements "I wish I wanted to" and "I didn't."

But I don't play the power position in either of the pieces. In both of my works, what I wish for and against and what I didn't do are in control. What I didn't do says far more about me then what I did do and what I wish I wanted inevitably will be what I get, whether I wanted it our not. I am bent towards the system and away from myself.

http://www.kellymark.com/IRS_CD.html

The Disney Princess meets the modern woman.

But where is the middle?

This images are my first step towards talking about the princess and the real live fleshy, female body. At first I was taking out all the features of the Princess, replacing them with my own. but as my process evolved, I realized the growing duality in the expectation and obligations of the Princess. In my newer images, I am focusing on her interactions with her "subjects." She keeps her smile, but obtains my eyes. Her smile is her way of getting what she wants. My eyes are the reality of the situation.. being, the same things that liberate her also cage her in.

The Ballerina and Her TuTu

The search for herself. from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Ballerina Stop Motion: Bad Quality

Untitled from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

i made this video at the beginning of the quarter. The quality is really low and the ideas are quite rudimentary, but it's the basis for what I've continued to work on this quarter.

Ballerina Production Stills

Is it possible that the things that give us power also keep us restrained? Does the use of feminine beauty to get ahead also create a world where beauty is commodified and turned against those who don't have high amounts of the desired good?

I'm employing the societal models of the ballerina and the princess to talk about the slightly outmoded, but still very present "feminine ideal."

As a society, we can say that we are post-postmodern, that beauty is no longer currency and that playing by the rules only gets you so far, but that is only half the story and a naive one at that. What if playing by the rules gets you exactly the attention you were looking for. What if playing by the rules of femininity is rewarding?

Characters like the ballerina and the princess play by the rules to get their stories to turn out perfectly. But while they are getting what they want, are they not also captives of their "good girl" disguise? This duality of captivity and reward based on beauty and good girl actions is what I'm am working to visually represent.

Playing at Perfection

Yves Klein: What a Man

Anthropometries of the Blue Period and Fire Paintings

A slew of feminist banter comes to mind while watching this piece. It is an amazing example of the male gaze and the males artistic control and cultural control over women. I often wonder what sort of woman would allow herself to be smeared with paint and then directed as to where to put her body. But it is hard to deduce seeing the time period and socially accepted representations of women in art.

I'm thinking about this type of action painting in relation to the childhood action of finger painting, where the act is taken into the hands of someone naive and unknowing... sort of like the women in Klein's works. What would a grow woman with finger paints do now? how would she pint herself? How much would she recall of her childhood freedom to draw outside of the lines?

Anna Gaskell and the Theatrics of Girlhood

Anna Gaskell and the Theatrics of Girlhood: Where Fantasy and Fright Meet.

Anna Gaskell’s work is beautiful by any aesthetic standard. Moving light, lovely little ladies and fairy tale forest scenes comprise the majority of her carefully constructed scenes. Fashion informs her shooting style and her subjects are definitely models torn from the pages of Teen Vogue. The women wear fetishized garments to carefully construct a world we all recognize from our now distant childhood –– her images are the making of a fairytale.

But the work turns us around. The faces aren’t happy. The poses aren’t serene. Everything is set up for perfection, but the moment doesn’t strike and the mood is left in limbo, creating an alternative fairy tale where the girls show their teeth, their slightly deranged eyes and their softly violent intimacy.

While Gaskell’s images might not be the perfect version of what a little girl should be, these slightly off kilter representations might be just what every little girl needs to look up to. Nancy Friday in her book The Power of Beauty writes,

"Still close to purity of emotion, children recognize in their bones exactly what the wretched stepsisters feel toward the more beautiful Cinderella, having felt the same murderous cruelty that very day toward their own bother or sister, whose golden curls, once again, won the last cookie on the plate..... Fairy tales divert children from these overly harsh accusations by giving them events and characters who represent and play out everything the child is feeling; the child no longer has to internalize the bad feelings, turn them against himself." pg 95

So perhaps Gaskell is trying to relieve us of the pressure of a perfect childhood or consequently, a perfect adulthood. Perhaps by showing us the uglier side of these beautiful little girls she is say, ‘All is not right. Everyone is not happy. But perhaps we don’t need to be.’O

On a more personal note: I enjoy Gaskell's work in relation to my own themes. I too am exploring the ways that childhood identity forms our adulthood mindset. I enjoy Gaskell's use of the unsettling, awkward and at times, violent moments that come through in the child's play and images. But throughout this their remains an undercurrent of perfection. The models are perfect looking and the images are highly aesthetisized in the way of fashion, again alluding to this higher beauty and power that stands out in images of glamour and fairy tale.