My current art project follows the theme of feminism.

I study English
Language at A-level and as part of my AS course I studied feminism, the
more radical side to the movement and the language they feel excludes
women and has done throughout history. Having found this topic interesting I
decided to choose it as my theme, I felt that looking at feminism from a
different point of view could prove to be very interesting and would become a
very effective project.
I have studied iconic women from the early movement of the 1900's which
inspired me to use images of these women throughout my work. My work
uses a combination of images and textile media to relay the feellings of the
women that became a part of our history, how they felt they suffered and
how they were angered by the restraints put upon them by their society. I
wanted to go into my project with an open mind and let my development
happen naturally, without restricting myself with a plan, so my project began
with simple prints and has developed into creating larger textile peices. The
artists that I have chosen focus on certain aspects of my theme or
incorporate techniques in their work that would influence my purpose well.
My artists are different in many ways, using different styles, media and
colours to influence their pieces. I have chosen both Cindy Sherman and
Helen O'Leary as my artists for this essay. Out of the four artists I have in my
project I have specifically chosen Sherman and O'Leary because they reflect
my work best. Both artists have a darker side to their work, that can be seen
in my own peices as my work has developed.

Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills(₁) are a series of sixty nine black and
white photographs created between 1977 and 1980. Sherman was inspired
by political issues, such as feminism, to create her work. Sherman is reluctant
to admit her workas being solely feminist, perhaps to avoid people making
direct assumptions about her art, but in an interview with Tate magazine she
states; "hopefully it's seen as feminist work." We can see, by looking at the
Untitled Film Stills that Sherman has focused on many different stereotypical
characters of women; the housewife, the prostitute, the librarian, the
sophisticate. Seeing that the photographs were created in post-war America,
when the role of females was being challenged by women all accross the
country, just by looking at Sherman's work we can see that feminism is
encorporated into the photographs, regardless of whether she will admit this
or not.

Helen O'Leary's Resurrection pieces are eight family christening gowns,

which she has worn away, creating a ghost-like, moth eaten look to her
pieces(₂). She has chosen these items of clothing, that are passed down from
generation to generation, to represent the stories that they hold and how,
over time, the stories become memories and slowly fade away as time
passes. O'Leary explains this on her website, saying; "these stories will be
lost as the older generations die and only the memory of the stories being
told will be left. It is these fragments of memories that are left hanging."
O'Leary is influenced by the concept of memories and how these are kept
alive or if they can indeed be kept alive ( she also states on her website; " my
work is about memory") When looking into O'Leary I found that she was also
inspired by women's "past associations with textiles"(₃) I found this very
interesting as it could apply to my own influences as O'Leary is talking about
a womens role earlier in history, where she was expected to have "learned
needlework"(₄), where a womans role with clothes "was an important
measure on the local society of the woman's worth"(₅). This is touching on
feminism, but O'leary's influences would not be considered to be fully
feminist, however I feel that it is important to metion when addressing my
artists inspirations.

The work of these artists is very different and therefore so is their inspiration,
however, things that have effected them as a person, whether it's feminism
or memories, inspire both artists. My inspiration is more closely link with that
of Sherman as we have both been inspired by feminism.

Sherman's Untitled Film Stills are untitled purposefully. By doing this she
encourages viewer interaction and challenges people to create their own
views based on the piece without the influence of a title or an idea. In theory
this concept is effective, Sherman is leaving her work a mystery, actively
engaging the public and making them use their own ideas of society to make
their own judgements on the photographs. Although Sherman appears to be
challenging authorship, Sherman actually contradicts this by appearing as
the model in her own work, making the peices far less anonymous than she
perhaps intended. Therefore people who are aware of Sherman, her views on
feminism and art, will already have pre-conceptions of her work, entirely
destroying the point of not giving her work a title.
Sherman uses black and white photography in her Untitled Film Stills, but
while Sherman's photography may resemble film stills, their quality is far
from perfect ( Sherman says; "I didn't care much about their print qualilty;
the photographs were supposed to look like they cost fifty cents.")

Helen O'Leary's Resurrection pieces are created to look very fragile and
ghost-like, perhaps to evoke sadness in the viewer, a sadness for the
memories that are being forgotten and fading away. Her viewer interaction
relies on the actual pieces and the explanations she gives of her work. Unlike
Sherman, O'Leary leaves her intentions out in the open, allowing the viewer
to be influenced by the artists words as well as her work. She guides the
viewer by giving them a description of how she came to create her work,
what her pieces represent and an idea of the emotions surrounding the
pieces(₆).
O'Leary takes items of clothing, in this case; cristening gowns and
creates a wire layer underneath the clothes to hold it's shape. She
wears away the fabric making it look aged and threadbare, creating
the impression that the item has been eaten away by time. O'Leary
says; "I work mainly with used textiles but also with wire which I like to
weave to form body shapes but which also rusts and breaks, it stains
and rots fabrics and threads it is in contact with."

Both Sherman and O'Leary use media that reflects the age of their
work, black and white photography to immitate old films, wire and
fabric to create pieces that have been forgotten by time. Their media is
different because their pieces have been created for different
intentions, however I have used both of these concepts in my own
work as my project has developed, creating my own photography and
textile work. Although both artists are different I have used both types
of media to influence my work and draw upon Sherman and O'Leary's
strengths.

Sherman's set up regarding her photographs is very simple, she used

locations she visited in those three years as her playground, making
use of busy streets, public buildings and her own home. The stills were
taken in places such as a family beach house, Arizona and New York
city as and when she was inspired to do so. Therefore there doesn't
seem to be much thought regarding sets or lighting, Sherman seems to
have taken the images when she was impelled by her location, or
when she felt she wanted to experiment with the stills. We can see this
from Sherman's inconsistent ideas throughout the stills, her first six
being of the same blonde "actress" taking different roles(₇), she took
some of the stills while on a trip to Arizona with her parents, Untitled
Film Still #48(₈), also known as The Hitchhiker, was shot at sunset one
evening during the trip.
The size of these stills are small; "her (Cindy Sherman) film stills look
and function just like the real ones—those 8-by-10-inch glossies
designed to lure us into a drama we find all the more compelling
because we know it is not real.(₉)" According to the Museum of Modern
Art the stills have been exhibited only once as an entire collection
before they recieved all sixty nine film stills; "In December 1995, The
Museum of Modern Art acquired all sixty-nine black-and-white
photographs in Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills series. This insured
that this landmark body of work was preserved in its entirety in a
single public collection. The series has been exhibited as a whole only
once before.(₁₀)"
O'Leary's set up is very different to that of Sherman's, her pieces were
created at the same time as a set, so O'Leary's work has the same feel
throughout her Resurrection pieces, Unlike Sherman's Film Stills which seems
to develop over the three years that they were taken. O'leary is a new artist,
there is very little information on her and only then from her own website.
Judging from her photographs of her Resurrection pieces we can see that
O'Leary has chosen to display them as a collection in what looks like a very
old room, the faded brick is conistant with the shabbyness of the clothes. She
uses this to make her pieces stand out, the white of the gowns contrasted
with brick backround, the sunlight leaving strange eerie shadows on the brick
and concealing parts of the wire that holds the shape of the gowns (see (₂) ).
These photographs as a whole convey the same feelings that the pieces
create on their own, the same kind of sadness and the same strange ghost-
like pressence of the cristening gowns. O'Leary's set up is very effective in
this way as it aids her viewer interaction, strengthening the feelings she has
created within her audience.

Both Artists have created their work in different ways, again because they
have different intentions. Sherman working in the space of three years,
playing with concepts and Ideas and O'Leary choosing a theme and creating
similar pieces to represent this. Regarding the set up of my own pieces I think
that I will influenced by both artists as a whole, creating my own feel with my
work, as I feel that set up is an important part of the creating process and
that it greatly influences the final outcome of the pieces.

My artists differ imensely, their media is completely different and so the

imapct of their work is also inevitably different, however the basic intentions
of my artists are similar. Both women use their art to explore abstract
concepts, ideas that provoke thought in their viewer. This use of intentions is
something that I want to explore further in my own work, playing with the
emotions of my own viewers to reflect those of the feminists who have
helped to create my project.

(₁)
Untitled Film Still #5

1977

(₂)

(₃)

http://www.helenoleary.co.uk/info.html

(Paragraph 1, Line 1)
(₄)

http://www.helenoleary.co.uk/info.html

(Paragraph 1, Line 4)

(₅)

http://www.helenoleary.co.uk/info.html

(Paragraph 1, Line 6)

(₆)

http://www.helenoleary.co.uk/gallery_146514.html

Note the description above her work.

(₇)

Untitled Film Still #3

1977

(₈)
Untitled Film Still #48

The Hitchhiker

1979

(₉)

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/sherman/index.html

Paragraph 3, Lines 5-8

(₁₀)

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/sherman/index.html

Paragraph 1