Looking out

inside our Body Bag,
looking out. 
tongue in mouth,
trapped,
pressing against teeth
imprisoned
a warm wet womb
stay safe
say nothing


SHUT YOUR MOUTH
keep quiet


be quiet


be

Fear

Things I make reflect my fears?

More than one in the bag? What is in that bag?  Go shopping.  Real shopping bags dedicated to  each artist. Tracey Emin's would have a blanket in it, or a loud hailer?  Too obvious?   Sarah Lucas would have eggs and vegetables, don't know what it says but it would be fun.  Is art allowed to be fun?

the darkness not expressed, we each wear a mask, many masks, a cliché too far?

 

Open mouths, no sound

 

Fears waiting to be stitched over and hidden

 

Boxed in, already trapped inside? Secure in the knowledge you can't get out, plenty to complain of but no action necessary. A bag/box of trapped thoughts, beliefs, explosive.....

 

trapped in the Body Bag, a mono print.....on a bag?

 

thoughts and fears scuttle  across the consciousness, scurrying round and round in the Body Bag. A bag of insects and spiders, a wirey tangle.  Pity barbed wire would be a Health and Safety risk too far.

 

A spider web of silence that traps sufferers of domestic violence, insects and eight legged creatures again....

 

The hidden fears named and stitched to the back of the mind

Other makers express/use their fears in their work.  do you stop being afraid when you have made use of it? Can you continue to make when you are no longer afraid.  Do you value your fears, hold them close, or do they hold you closer.

Agnes Richter stitched her thought all over her clothes, an effort to escape her  Body Bag and the Psychiatric Hospital where she was enclosed    [Prinzhorn Collection]

Lorina Bulwer stitched her stories endlessly in The Lowestoft Workhouse to express her anger when no-one would listen

Tracey Emin Stitched her blanket to force herself into the world of acceptance

Elizabeth Parker stitched her anguish and guilt in laundry silk when she dared not tell anyone of the assault on her by her employer

I stitch

Inside outside

Rose Finn-Kelsey said there is a a divergence between the experience of the subject and what is visible to the spectator.

This inconsistency between internal experience and external observation is a theme that the artist continued to explore in the 1970s.

For her later installation, Book and Pillow, 1978 (collection of the artist),

Finn-Kelcey modelled a ‘small being’ That she called her "animus" into whom she projected the unconfident side of her own personality. She claimed this character had a negative influence on her ability to communicate, making her speech clumsy and clichéd.

She explained, ‘The outward appearance is of my continuing to participate and even lead the discussion. While internally I’m fighting, panicking’ (quoted in Brett, pp.7-8). The seen position is calm and controlled while the felt position is self-conscious and anxious


Brett G.  Rose Finn-Kelcey.  2013, Riding House.co.uk

The viewer is invited to put their head against the pillow to examine the book.

Touching the pillow stops the relentless buzzing of a fly which is broadcast round the room, only when the head is lifted does the buzzing return.


The little red figure which resembles an homunculus, was made by Tony McVey a Model maker at the Natural History Museum, . It was created from Rose' description, as Rose felt she could only feel it, not see it.

It is reminiscent of a foetus, a foreign body but part of the host, grown by the host, resented by the host, irritating the host has the power the host grants it.

I made this small figure to symbolise an  internalised small being that feeds paranoia and doubt. There is something of the tapeworm about it.

Crossing the Line

Body as Bag:Bag as Body

As you get older, your skin wrinkles becomes thinner and less elastic. It gets drier as it makes less oil and sweat. Your bones become more visible as you store less fat beneath your skin. Inside the body your bones and muscle become weaker. Your memory gets worse, and your immune system cannot fight disease as easily.

The Bag that you live in/through is getting worn out.

Inside the Bag you hide your feelings, fears, obsessions, hopes no-one can see inside the Bag, you are trapped in there, with your feelings.

For the exhibition for my Fine Arts degree Exhibition in 2016, working mainly with fabric and stitch, I constructed  figures that asked questions about female experience with reference to the usual depiction of women in Art.  These four figures explored the concept that as women age , they become less visible.

I called it "All about Eve" 

It occurred to me that my life size figures were bags.

For my MA I am extending this theme to question more about the human body generally.  

I am thinking of the body as a bag, one that encloses all that makes us human and interprets to us all that we perceive.  

This bag ages and disintegrates although the person inside often claims they still feel young. Perhaps I will ask people just how young they "feel"

Inside the bag all our feelings, fears, hopes, dreams are hidden.