After my tutorial with Kathryn I went on to research the two artists she suggested I look at. The first was Shana Moulton, a multi-media artist who uses video, opera, and performance to depict wellness obsessed alter ego ‘Cynthia’ as a means to channel contemporary anxieties.
On Cynthia, Moulton says “Cynthia started out as me imagining what kind of person would need to wear these dresses I was making as a student. The dresses were embedded with various medical devices. One was a neck brace dress. I had a walker dress. A haemorrhoid pillow dress. (Cynthia) was this heightened state of anxiety or a caricature of discomfort and pain whether it was psychological or physical. She became a combination of myself and other female relatives, but she doesn’t really have specific biographical details. She often gets described as a housewife, but I don’t know if she’s married. I’m not married! She is described as an agoraphobe… I don’t know about that! She is always depicted in her home alone. What her story is about is what I personally think about or do when I’m alone at home wondering how to escape reality, or defy ageing, or death.”
I really liked Moulton’s work, although I don’t think the alter-ego perspective would work for me – I explored this in the works of Juno Calypso, Cindy Sherman and Amalia Ulman in previous units and decided it didn’t align with my project / artist objectives. I do however think that the sculptural aspect of Moulton’s work and the topics which seem to reference Christian rituals, water and spa aesthetics to communicate contemporary anxieties would be very useful when I am planning the set for my film.