When I was creating my own sequential images I was reminded of Francesca Woodman (1958-1981), a young photographer, now a martyr to photography as she took her own life. Woodman created many self-portraits which are poignant and haunting exploring issues of womanhood and place.
Many of her images are in abandoned or wrecked buildings and the textures of the dilapidation contrast to Woodman's own body and perhaps express her sense of herself as she explores photography, technique and composition. 'Corey Keller describes in her accompanying essay, her work “approached female selfhood and sexuality from a deeply personal – rather than political or programmatic – point of view.”' (Wrigley, 2011). Woodman did create sequential images, and these were staged narratives that did explore feminity in the environment often in her images faces are not seen just disappearing or blurred bodies mingled into the surroundings. 'The privacy, light, space, and peeling walls of the pasta factory also allowed her to experiment further with her confrontational nudes, the hazy figures blending into furniture, her disappearing forms, elements that have since become synonymous with Woodman’s style, and in some cases interpreted as dark omens foreshadowing her tragic end' (Wrigley, 2011) Why I was reminded of her work was the image below where he is dressed in multiple suspender belts. Solomon Godeau writes about Woodman from a feminist standpoint and 'she points out that Woodman’s seemingly traditional nudes (with reference to art history) often include a detail that disrupts the composition and forces us to consider them more deeply. One example is Untitled (1979–80). A naked woman is lying across a Victorian sofa. On closer inspection, we see that she is wearing several garter belts. The extra stockings adorn the wall behind the sofa, inviting various interpretations.' (Tellgren, 2015)
I like to think of this image as the multiple selves or sides to woman, every day playing the part of woman. As the 'other' in society, we are in the eyes of others still an object which many ideas of what we are being placed on. The use of traditional and sculptural lend these images weight and as Solomon-Godeau points out there is a disruption in the image that makes the viewer think. There should be disruption in photographs, now more than ever, as we are bombarded by images we need something to make us stop and actually look at an image to consider deeply everything in the frame. Here the stockings hanging in the background almost give a sense of history or of previous lives, the multiplicity of the belts could be interpreted as restraints as much of women's clothing is made to be restraining. The picture itself is almost restrained the woman is not looking directly at us, we are not being challenged directly however it does challenge indirectly and subtly and plays upon your mind upon turning away and perhaps this is why thsi photograph is the one I returned to..
References
Tellgren, A. (2015) Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel. [online] Artblart.files.wordpress.com. Available at: https://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/essay.pdf [Accessed 12 October 2022].
Wrigley, T. (2011) Francesca Woodman. [online] AnOther. Available at: https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/1532/francesca-woodman [Accessed 12 October 2022].
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