LAUGHING WHILE CONDUCTING
LAUGHING WHILE CONDUCTING is an ongoing series of works based on and inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as St Catherine of Alexandria (1615-17) and the novel Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi (1991), their title referencing the medieval Conductus, a discant chorus of voices, often singing of the lives of the saints.
I think of these works as akin to historical images of female saints, but rather than holding the means of martyrdom, these women laugh while wielding their weapons of choice, instruments in an orchestra of violence. I imagine Artemisia Gentileschi as their conductor, directing their discordant music with St Catherine's reed as her baton.
My work using laughter explores ways of depicting women's internalised rules of conduct, posing questions about the ways in which within contemporary culture women are appraised, influenced & policed and how 'self- surveillance' circumscribes the repertoire of legitimate actions available to them. Many of the subjects of my paintings offer a riposte to self-consciousness, they often teeter on the verge of indulging in 'catastrophic' behaviour, or at times topple over. They may be inappropriate and immune to self-censure. When women are laughing the most seemingly innocuous actions can be subversive, just as acts of transgression may be foregrounded by the prosaic.
I’m always thinking about where and how women take up space and disrupt politeness and how they circumvent self-control, and in my work I increasingly explore what might happen were the disciplines of good conduct to fail. The title of this series LAUGHING WHILE CONDUCTING reflects this, in its subversion of what might be considered 'good conduct'.
In creating thees works I have been researching historical examples of women engaging in violent and disruptive acts, the high prevalence of women consuming true crime, and reflecting on the prohibitions which are placed on women within society and the particular kind of opprobrium apportioned to women who 'misbehave'. I paint what happens when they do.