Change of State is a practice-based project exploring the representation and perceptions of the body, not from a surface perspective as viewed by others, but focusing on the deep internal processes that happen at the edge of awareness. It is an attempt to capture what it feels like to inhabit a human body, especially when it is undergoing a process of change and to translate these experiences into a visual language, based on learned information and our own lived sensation. How are these processes internally felt and understood?
One of the key elements in the picture we build of our bodily processes is the ‘Medical Diagram’, usually a simple outline drawing of the parts and their positions, with the name labels in Latin text and arrows showing the functional workings. These diagrams are taught in school, litter the walls and tables in medical centres and hospitals and are the blueprints for the mental image we build of our internal organs and processes.
Impressions are influenced by all sorts of graphic descriptions, such as lists of symptoms, charts of statistics and pathways of treatment. But there is a huge gap between this and the flesh and blood reality of being embodied. Representations of medical procedures where the skin is cut open, pornographic images, our own injuries or discharge, all lend themselves to the composite mental picture of bodily mechanisms. But, what we envisage when we think about the workings of the body is mostly pure speculation. The body, which should be known better than anything else in the external world, turns out to be a distant, unconnected, fragmented mystery, over which we have very little control.
Change the Subject!
Bodies pass through stages of change throughout the course of life, especially female bodies and it is intriguing how these events or transitions are understood or conceptualised. The menopause, in particular effects every part of a women’s body and can provoke a complete change in life style and personality,. But it is also a subject regarded as distasteful and yet another feminine taboo, which women are expected to experience quietly and without fuss.
I wanted to explore the physical and mental health changes experienced by women in this period and to create a body of work which raises awareness and challenges accepted norms and taboo.
This exhibition is a collection of paintings, prints and textiles exploring this subject. It takes as its starting point the iconic medical diagram of the female reproductive system and interprets other medical information about procedures and events that take place in and to the female body throughout the life course, with particular reference to ageing and the menopause. These images are manipulated and reproduced in a way that metaphorically represents how these natural internal systems and functions and various medical procedures are experienced in subjective consciousness. Other symbolic images of the body are also used to depict the nature of the mental image that arises when we map our bodily processes. They serve as external expressions of internal representation.
Linoprint on paper
My aim is to combine the clinical diagrammatic style of graphic design with the gestural activity of painting as a symbol of lived experience. Flat, pared down symbolic forms and information are transformed into distorted, fragmented reflections on medical conditions and procedures, highlighting the opposing intimacy and alienation involved in experiencing the body.
Linoprint on board
To view images from the exhibition, click here at TrapeziumArts.com
Creative Workshop
This was held at Trapezium Gallery and gave participants the chance to explore the issues raised in the exhibition concerning women’s health and to express thoughts and feelings related to personal experience in an honest and unashamed space.
The workshop invited women to consider health issues they had experienced throughout their lives and try to express them in visual form in a large collage format on the gallery walls.. Using a mixture of painting, drawing and text, they created some powerful and moving images. There was also a lot of lively discussion and sharing with women saying they enjoyed the freedom to open up about their experiences from long ago or right now. They described it as supportive, affirming and a thoroughly enjoyable day!
To view images form the workshop, click here at TrapeziumArts.com
This project was supported by Bradford City Council.
Under the Skin
This exhibition included some of the paintings from this project:
