helen shanahan's abandonments
There are some really good images from the most recent in Helen Shanahan's Abandonments project, titled Mum.
The figure was the subject of an earlier post dealing with its creation in a haunting set of images.
I very much like the fact that the abandonments are often presented with no contextualising or biographical information. This means that the art has to work on its own merits, which I believe it does.
The basic concept of the project is compelling in itself. Creating figures of people of personal significance to the artist, living with a figure for a time, then taking it somewhere of special relevance, photographing it, and leaving it there. See Helen's original proposal for the project here.
A recent exception was a figure of Helen's friend Myriam which was burned (for reasons explained in this post) during Manchester Artists' Bonfire.
But this exception aside it's fascinating to think that the figures might have a whole life beyond the immediate circumstances of their creation, documentation and abandonment. They might simply sit where they're left and break up over time, or they might be found and gain a new life.
These abandoned figures might become toys, be mistaken for archaeological findings, be deliberately broken, be remade into something new, get appropriated into someone else's art, and so on. Their significance and the slightly melancholy aspect of most of the images will be unknown and they'll take on a whole new meaning.
Anyway, the current set of figures. I don't plan to give away any information Helen hasn't provided on her blog, so I won't tell you anything about the person represented or the reason for the abandonment, or where the abandonment took place. Instead I just plan to talk about the images.
I'll write some brief notes on the figure and on the landscape first, then look at the photos individually and as a group.
The figure superficially resembles one of those recumbent bodies on medieval tombs in churches (which sometimes have sculptures of a decaying body at ground level). It might equally be one of those figures on the exterior of a cathedral, standing piously with the other saints.
The white of the wax and the brown discolouration aid this resemblance. The figure seems to be made of the alabaster or limestone that such sculptures are often carved from. Or yet again it might be one of the eerie casts of the victims of Pompeii.
The location is almost impossible to place. I suspect if I knew the area it might be familiar, but I can think of places in what I know to be the completely different landscapes around Greater Manchester (Bury, Stalybridge and Chorlton Waterpark to name three), Morecambe and Heysham, and elsewhere that all have similarities. It seems to be flat and wet with only low vegetation.
As a sequence the photos might be seen to comment on memory, or on the process of growing up, or perhaps both.
The figure was the subject of an earlier post dealing with its creation in a haunting set of images.
I very much like the fact that the abandonments are often presented with no contextualising or biographical information. This means that the art has to work on its own merits, which I believe it does.
The basic concept of the project is compelling in itself. Creating figures of people of personal significance to the artist, living with a figure for a time, then taking it somewhere of special relevance, photographing it, and leaving it there. See Helen's original proposal for the project here.
A recent exception was a figure of Helen's friend Myriam which was burned (for reasons explained in this post) during Manchester Artists' Bonfire.
But this exception aside it's fascinating to think that the figures might have a whole life beyond the immediate circumstances of their creation, documentation and abandonment. They might simply sit where they're left and break up over time, or they might be found and gain a new life.
These abandoned figures might become toys, be mistaken for archaeological findings, be deliberately broken, be remade into something new, get appropriated into someone else's art, and so on. Their significance and the slightly melancholy aspect of most of the images will be unknown and they'll take on a whole new meaning.
Anyway, the current set of figures. I don't plan to give away any information Helen hasn't provided on her blog, so I won't tell you anything about the person represented or the reason for the abandonment, or where the abandonment took place. Instead I just plan to talk about the images.
I'll write some brief notes on the figure and on the landscape first, then look at the photos individually and as a group.
The figure superficially resembles one of those recumbent bodies on medieval tombs in churches (which sometimes have sculptures of a decaying body at ground level). It might equally be one of those figures on the exterior of a cathedral, standing piously with the other saints.
The white of the wax and the brown discolouration aid this resemblance. The figure seems to be made of the alabaster or limestone that such sculptures are often carved from. Or yet again it might be one of the eerie casts of the victims of Pompeii.
The location is almost impossible to place. I suspect if I knew the area it might be familiar, but I can think of places in what I know to be the completely different landscapes around Greater Manchester (Bury, Stalybridge and Chorlton Waterpark to name three), Morecambe and Heysham, and elsewhere that all have similarities. It seems to be flat and wet with only low vegetation.
As a sequence the photos might be seen to comment on memory, or on the process of growing up, or perhaps both.
We start with a close up of the figure and gradually pull out. At first we can just see it's floating in water. Then we can see that the water appears to be quite shallow. The figure now seems smaller. As the camera gets further away until we lose sight of the figure we're relatively confident of the scale of the pool it's in.
Then in the sixth and final image the pool suddenly appears to be smaller even than we initially thought. The abandoned figure is utterly lost to view and seems smaller and more fragile in the previous images than it did before. This abrupt change in our sense of scale enhances our reading of this sequence of images.
Floating in the water the figure raises all sorts of associations for me. The Lady of the Lake of Arthurian legend would be one. Shakespeare's Ophelia would be another. The low angle of the fourth photograph and the glittering points of light on the water made me think of Pre-Raphaelite paintings of both Tennyson's take on the Arthurian stories, and of Ophelia.
These images of course were created by men with a particular, and skewed sense of feminity and propriety. I can't say whether these associations were anywhere in Helen's mind when taking the photos. But I get the sense from the photos that even if they were then the intention was more to subvert than propogate them.
In the third photo the stones visible under the orange-brown water look almost like marble or limestone. Like the ruins of larger stone versions of the small wax figure floating above them.
The final image, with its bright light, lens flare and featureless sky makes it seem like the whole landscape is dissolving. Whether it is dissolving because it's a dream, or through the gradual erosion of memory, or by some other process is ambiguous.
And while so far as I can tell it's light that obscures details of the image, it might equally be mist. Or even, forgetting that it's a photograph for a moment, tears.
But do go and look at the images for yourself. Have a look at the rest of the blog too. This is a really fascinating project.
Then in the sixth and final image the pool suddenly appears to be smaller even than we initially thought. The abandoned figure is utterly lost to view and seems smaller and more fragile in the previous images than it did before. This abrupt change in our sense of scale enhances our reading of this sequence of images.
Floating in the water the figure raises all sorts of associations for me. The Lady of the Lake of Arthurian legend would be one. Shakespeare's Ophelia would be another. The low angle of the fourth photograph and the glittering points of light on the water made me think of Pre-Raphaelite paintings of both Tennyson's take on the Arthurian stories, and of Ophelia.
These images of course were created by men with a particular, and skewed sense of feminity and propriety. I can't say whether these associations were anywhere in Helen's mind when taking the photos. But I get the sense from the photos that even if they were then the intention was more to subvert than propogate them.
In the third photo the stones visible under the orange-brown water look almost like marble or limestone. Like the ruins of larger stone versions of the small wax figure floating above them.
The final image, with its bright light, lens flare and featureless sky makes it seem like the whole landscape is dissolving. Whether it is dissolving because it's a dream, or through the gradual erosion of memory, or by some other process is ambiguous.
And while so far as I can tell it's light that obscures details of the image, it might equally be mist. Or even, forgetting that it's a photograph for a moment, tears.
But do go and look at the images for yourself. Have a look at the rest of the blog too. This is a really fascinating project.
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