Degree Show Review – Ffion Gardner’s ‘My body is my freedom’

These larger than life canvases scream how big of an issue revenge porn has become. Despite the bright colours, the expressive paint marks and splatters displays the artist’s anger and frustration, alongside powerful words like “I am not here to please you” in capital letters and graffiti form, stating that discussing this topic is a rebellion. This issue is a very modern one, but women have been fighting against patriarchal ideologies for many years, making it a piece that represents that the fight isn’t over yet.

The colourful and flowery background tells us that it’s alright to be feminine and that it’s in no way a weakness. Neither is taking pictures of yourself proudly and sending them to someone you trust something to be ashamed of. She speaks of revenge porn sites and how, sadly, it’s easy to get on one if you trust the wrong person. The pieces take control of this and make female bodies their own and demands respect, however women choose to display them.

The provocative poses show confidence and a freedom of sexuality, something many women don’t have the privilege of owning; even women in Western countries, although not always as severe, find themselves in violating situations. I believe that these paintings capture this fight for freedom remarkably well and with a lot of fierceness, as well as the fight to end victim-blaming.

Level 4 end of year assessment

Documentation 

Shaped Paintings

Field Final Piece: Pinhole porn and internet trolls.

Inside/Outside: Shaped Paintings and Feminism

My second final piece

Field group work: Fairytales, Sexual Assault and Trump.

 

Contextualisation

Dorothy Iannone – final piece

Teeth – My second final piece

Contextualisation for Field’s final piece

Prague Art Findings

Fine Art Amsterdam Trip

My second final piece

For my second final piece, I changed my mind many times on how to capture the myth of Vagina Dentata, inspired from the art piece I saw in Prague and the film Teeth, that highlights rape culture and women fighting back with the very thing that makes them seen as weak in society. There were so many possibilities on how to create something to symbolise the myth that it caused me to change my mind while actually creating the piece. I first of all thought that I was going to create a flower sculpture out of clay, but mid-way in creating the clay sculpture, I realised that this wasn’t capturing it as realistically as I wanted the piece to. Therefore, I decided to sketch out possibilities;

I even planned on making cupcakes with vagina-looking toppings and teeth inside, but decided to stick with the vagina sculpture instead. I believe that I made the right decision because it turned out just as I wanted it to, and captures my inspirations for creating this piece very well. I painted the vagina pink and red, symbolising flowers and roses, which sort of links to my first idea. The teeth inside has fake blood all over them, creating the idea of women fighting back against rape culture. Here are images of the piece while I was creating it;

And here’s the finished final piece;

I made the vagina look imperfect and even made the teeth gappy and look irregular to highlight the extreme measures women go to to have the ‘perfect’ body, even getting their labia trimmed, when having ‘imperfect’ bodies are perfectly normal. I decided to make it a dark pink, which resembles an actual vagina, but also fits into femininity and flowers which is something I’ve been using a lot during the year for the Inside/ Outside project. I do believe that is resembles a flower, which is what I originally planned to make, but the cracks and ridges of the clay definitely looks better on a sculpture of a vagina, as it creates a more realistic look to it.

Teeth – My second final piece

For my second final piece, I’ve been inspired by the underrated feminist film Teeth (2007). The film has a plot based around a Dawn O’Keefe, a woman with teeth in her vagina, who sets out to take vengeance on all men who have wronged her after being raped.

The film is based around Vagina dentata (Latin for toothed vagina), which is described a folk tale in which a woman’s vagina is said to contain teeth, with the associated implication that sexual intercourse might result in injury, emasculation, or castration for the man involved. The topic of “vagina dentata” may also cover a rare medical condition affecting the vagina, in which case it is more accurately termed a vaginal dermoid cyst.

Such folk stories are frequently told as cautionary tales warning of the dangers of unknown women and to discourage rape. Erich Neumann relays one such myth in which “a fish inhabits the vagina of the Terrible Mother; the hero is the man who overcomes the Terrible Mother, breaks the teeth out of her vagina, and so makes her into a woman”. The legend also appears in the mythology of the Chaco and Guiana tribes of South America. In some versions, the hero leaves one tooth.

My idea is to create a flower piece, most probably a rose, and insert teeth, or something that resembles teeth, in the middle. I’m planning on creating these out of clay or plaster, and then paint it red and try to make it resemble a vagina. I’m planning on presenting it as a sculpture and have people look into it, thus have it around waist level so people can look into it and find the teeth.

The piece will represent women metaphorically biting back against patriarchal ideologies, such as rape culture and body shaming. As the folklore states, the teeth in the vagina myth was supposed to discourage rape, which speaks a lot about our culture and society; a woman has to contain the risk of emasculation to stop getting raped.

I changed my mind on how to create this piece, as I wanted to represent the film and myth in a more ‘realistic’ way, and decided to create a sculpture of a vagina out of clay and insert ‘teeth’ in the middle, very noticeably for people to see. I also decided to put fake blood around the teeth to create an angry look to the piece.