Dawn Woolley - The Substitute
The current exhibition at the New Hall Art Collection is by Photographer and Installation Artist Dawn Woolley.
"Primarily my artwork is self-portraiture, but not in the traditional sense. In the work I create a photographic copy of myself and place it in the real world instead of me. She becomes a substitute and my visual representative.
"My photographs, videos and installations form an enquiry into the act of looking and being looked at. Referring to psychoanalysis, phenomenology and feminism I examine my own experience of becoming an object of sight and also consider the experience the viewer has when looking at me as a female, and a photographic object. Voyeurism and exhibitionism intertwine as I attempt to disrupt relationships of power in purposefully provocative scenes.
"By producing photographs that establish me as an object it could be argued that I produce artwork that reinforces stereotypical images of the female body, but by depicting my body as an image I am able to suggest my presence while confirming my absence. There is a suspension of disbelief taking place in the viewing public, as they want to see image and body simultaneously. The overtly sexual nature of the body compels the viewer into the position of voyeur, only to reveal itself as an inanimate object.
"This wilful delusion is inherent to the medium of photography - the desire to look at a 2-dimensional photograph and believe in the integrity of the 3-dimensional objects that are suggested by the surface."
Open Daily, 10am- 6pm, 7 March - 3 April 2010 http://www-art.newhall.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/
