Victorine Meurent

Victorine-Louise Meurent, c.1865, from the collection of Edouard Manet

I came across this recently on the Wikipedia entry for Victorine, who (as you know I am sure) was the model for Edouard Manet's Olympia and Le déjeuner sur l'herbe. Olympia remains one of my all time favourite works of art. I had written a much earlier post on this painting called "Its odd, I always thought I made men uneasy", and had inadvertently included a photo of Mme Ernestine Nadar...thankfully a reader was quick to point out the error. Nice to know someone's looking! The above picture was taken around the same time that Olympia created a scandal when first shown in Paris...

Crime Scene

anonymous waves, Crime Scene, 2013, photomontage

I have always liked alleyways. The paradox of escape or entrapment. What secrets do they hold? This work began with some snapshots taken while walking along the 'avenue of consumerism' that is the main street of Burleigh Heads on Australia's Gold Coast. A young skater weaving down the street with mobile phone glued to his ear was the inspiration for the poem 'APPology' a few posts back...

The street is largely made up of cafes and boutiques, the cafe clientele often looking as if they had stepped straight out of the shop windows as they order their flat whites. The second paradox: the unadorned alleyways intersecting with the manicured world of display and desire.

But there is an even more sinister side to this work that was prompted by the publicity surrounding the Jill Meagher tragedy (for my overseas readers a young woman on her way home from a work 'do' was dragged into an alleyway, raped and murdered. Her attacker, a serial offender, in hindsight should never have been walking the streets).

It struck me that the desire to be something other than ourselves that is at the heart of the cliched world of fashion marketing, and the implied objectification of women ultimately creates the environment that breeds the kind of person who knows the difference between right and wrong, but simply doesn't care. Fashion victim? Dressed to kill? She was asking for it? Think about it next time you pass a boutique, or an alleyway...

No Reason



soundscape: emptywhale
eyescape: anonymous waves

You can watch and download from the Internet Archive here (MPEG2 file and full screen recommended)...

...and the full set of videos can be found here...

Picabia's keys

anonymous waves, Picabia's keys, 2013, colllage

This one is a little tribute to Francis Picabia, whose 1918 poem 'Anecdote' is the inspiration for the anonymous waves project, which at the moment is languishing somewhat, and possibly somewhere, in the Tasman Sea on a rudderless boat...

Star Poem #1

anonymous waves, Star Poem #1, 2013, mixed media

38

anonymous waves, 38, Photomontage, 2013

Beginning a series of newer 'conceptual' works and appropriations...

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Bob Georgeson, O Come, All Ye Faithful, 2012, Photomontage

One of the last (I can hear the sighs of relief!) from The Brides of Christ series...