about the work
My recent work explores the history of visual representation, gender studies, narrative, and pictorial traditions. Beginning as an exploration of “landscape” both as imaginary space and as a metaphor for the body, the medium employed is fabric which is sewn, constructed and composed into photographic subject matter.
I am intrigued by the reformulation of theories of the Sublime stemming from 17th and 18th century European ideals of Romanticism and aesthetic principles as related to the genre of landscape painting. My re-visioning of the Sublime involves a feminist critique – one which overturns the “power of the eye and a proprietary relationship to the landscape” *, a notion that points to complex relationships between power, gender and representation.
An additional source of inspiration for my work has been the use of fabric and drapery throughout the history of painting. The generous use of drapery as a pictorial device was common during (and following) the Renaissance as it set the stage for biblical and mythical subject matter. The fabric in these paintings defies logic as it often floats in space engulfing figures and embellishing the edges of the picture plane. My compositions are drawn from paintings by Gentisleschi, Caravaggio, Mazza, Tintoretto, Ribera, van Dyck, Poussin, Titian, and more and I often choose those which feature female figures/characters. The sculptural isolation of the drapery from the scenes of these paintings highlights the once occupied allegorical stage.
Siobhan Arnold, 2011
* Jacqueline Labbe, Romantic Visualities: Landscape, Gender and Romanticism. New York: St. Martins Press, 1998:37.