Undoing the Body

“Undoing the Body” is confronting two images, a highly individual with an iconic image, using printmaking techniques. The kernel of the project is a question: how can we read familiar images differently. In this work, I use classical statues as ‘screen’ onto which I ‘project’ closeup photographs of skin. In this way the work confronts two images, an iconic image with a highly individual one. The work wants to address the issue of aging, not only as an individual biological process, but also as a cultural construction.

Classical statues are often battered and fragmented. Nonetheless, the representations of bodies developed from the 5th century BCE had a lasting impact on notions of ideal bodies especially in European culture. They may not carry the meaning they once did in art and art education, however, their aesthetics live on in popular culture such as perfume advertisements or computer games. Venus Callipyge (literal meaning "Venus of the beautiful buttocks) might remind you of belfie’s made famous by the likes of Kim Kardashian. 

Skin - it is the outer shell of our body. In our highly self-conscious time, old age is pathologized and needs treatment. The skin of an 80 year old person has collected traces of a life lived. When images of skin are layered onto the statues that skin, at times, looks like a peplos, an antique pleated dress, or like waves of the sea and sometimes, clearly recognisable, as skin of an old body. The framing on the sculpture gives the recordings something timeless and outstanding and questions the social meanings of desire and disgust.

In 2023 a series of nine aquatint photo-gravures were developed at the Druckwerkstatt of Kulturwerk, BBK Berlin under the guidance of printmaker Regina Ziegeler.