My Fisherman’s wife work from last year. Just finished another edit of it, set for my website.

Deets:

This work was made for a group exhibition entitled ‘Dream of The Fisherman’s Wife’; curated by Lucinda Eva-May. It was held in the Photospace Gallery at the Australian National University. We were asked to create a new work of art in response to ‘Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife’; an erotic woodcut made by Japanese artist Hokusai in 1814.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s_Wife

The work is a life-sized video of myself performing a Japanese Butoh dance. The image of my body is a silhouette comprised of constantly flickering white blobs of bright light (as opposed to solid colour normally thought of in a silhouette). The work was then projected above a pool of water on the ground, reflecting the video underneath, seemingly beyond the physical restraints of the floor.

I chose to focus on the fisherman, as he is absent from the woodcut despite being referenced in the title of the work. While the eroticism of the woodcut is the most obvious aspect of the work, I believe that the fisherman’s sorrow in knowing that his wife is unfaithful is just as important.