Jane Davidson - MFA Candidate
Project Overview - Push/Play: engaging with agency in print media (provisional title)
The Poems for Chile/ Raiment series was a suite of digital laser prints exhibited at the St James Theatre in Wellington in 2000.
A later text Songs for Ascension (2007) was developed as a parallel to accompany the following images from this earlier suite. This text was developed to further explore and unravel the themes inherent in the visual work; a series alluding to the disjunction between fictional history and the urban reality of surviving the nightmare of political chaos. This disjunction is reflected in the contrast between the harsh realities suggested in the writing and the softer and more romantic nature of the images. My project explores – amongst other things – the potential resonance of such a contrast.
Critical art writer Ernst van Alphen points out how extreme trauma can be enacted in art by the use of play and toylike motifs. He argues that direct visual representation of trauma is impossible (beyond words) and that toys and playful images can be used to allude to the ‘unreality’ of extreme historical events.
The two themes of agency and play continue to inspire and inform my work.
The full article Songs of Ascension can be found in Scope art: 2 2007 here.
Previous Work - Poems for Chile/Raiment series.
A3 colour laser prints.
- Black Horse/Caballo Negro.
- Butterfly for Chile/Los Decaparecidos.
- Dawn/Caballo de los Suenos.
- Chile.
Biography
I have a varied art history career; including over 20 years art training, practice, exhibition, event and gallery work. A list of eductation, exhibition history and selected bibliography can be downloaded here.
paradise.net.nz