Now Where Were We?

After having my major breakthrough (see last post) I've been beavering away trying to work out how to express the sentiment.

As a recap, after talking to the women in the Mutton Club I'd come to the conclusion that this project was all about the way in which we hide our scars and the effect that might have on us. I'm viewing the whole thing as a bit of a continuum from complete openness to complete obscurity. There are very few people who go about the place completely open about who they are and how they're damaged - that would probably get you locked up. But neither are there many people who are able to completely conceal themselves either.

So we, as human beings, have to work out where we sit on the concealment/revelation continuum. Only a very select group gets the true essence of an individual. Wider groups get an increasingly watered down version depending on whether they are friend, colleague acquaintance or random stranger because to reveal our true essence makes us vulnerable and to be vulnerable we need to trust the person we're exposing ourselves to.

Easy to express that in writing but how to do it visually and in a way that isn't too bleedin' obvious? I've spent the last couple of weeks thinking about that. I've painted oranges in various stages of peeling.

I've made balls of felt and cut into them to show the strata underneath

I used the film of the felt ball, added kaleidoscope effects to create more layers and put a fugue (layered) soundtrack underneath

I used nudes by famous artists to show how we hide ourselves and made a film with them

I dressed them in clothes. Here is Rembrandt nude lady in a ballgown.

I even collaged them.

In short, I got a little bit obsessed with the classical nudie people but it's all good developmental work - and I have re-discovered the joy of dressing paper dollies. I also discovered the joy of printing onto transparencies. Looks good.

Whilst these were all useful experiments, they didn't necessarily express completely the concept that we are all covering ourselves up on a daily basis. The most appealing one for me was the idea of putting clothes on and that's the point at which the idea hit me. Strippers. They're completely invulnerable when they're stripping but wouldn't it be interesting to film a stripper putting her clothes back on? Kind of subvert the idea of covering up our vulnerability by making her more vulnerable as she adds layers.

And that's where I've got to. The rest of this project is going to be all about the stripping. Hang on to your hats and don't access this blog at work from now on, whatever you do.