Bodily Rhetoric
The inspiration or generative material for my work comes from a number of sources – literature, popular culture, media, art history, the uses, commodification and modes of presentation of women, the study of bodily rhetoric, material qualities and the study of anatomy. It was impressed upon me early on in my education that a serious engagement with literature was essential. This has proven to be true and has had a profound effect on my development as a figurative artist.
This series of works reflects an interest in the conventions of “bodily rhetoric”, which I describe as denaturalized figural attitudes or poses, invented to express ideas intrinsic to a particular medium. The Greek Kouros figures serve as notable examples of a derived pose specific to the medium of sculpture. This group of sculptures reference the idiosyncratic, media generated poses of contemporary fashion photography, with the presentation of the body, as in the Kouros figures, lying outside the realm of normal posture and colloquial gesture. My knowledge of anatomy allows me the freedom to invent proportion and form of the figures modeling the works without the use of a live model.
