Original Skin
Nexus Multicultural Gallery, Adelaide
Nexus Window Space August 2008
In this mixed media instillation called Original Skin, Lauryn Arnott explores existential aspects of the female body- its beauty, decay, its transformations and flaws. In this the female figure is not primarily virtuous or a classical ideal, but rather an expression of the human spirit ~ capricious, sublime, volatile and morally ambivalent. The question of being human is a central theme in these mixed media drawings. The figure relates not only to self but also to identity. The body is represented as the seat of identity.
Shaped by the flaws of difference and exclusion resultant from migration, birth and cultural status, Arnott’s drawings explore the body as more than surface, as they give form to those experiences which take place in the margins between ‘inside and outside’. The relationship between power and vulnerability is an important element in her drawings and prints. They offer no comfort, only the questioning of the relationship between victims and oppressors. Under Mugabe’s rule people have had to defy the system in order to affirm their human existence and therefore affirm life. Death, as does life, exists in our every moment. The figure in the triptych titled Death is a womb is an affirmation of life over death, as it portrays a resurrection.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © LAURYN ARNOTT
Image: Titles of individual pictures Death is a Womb triptych- Breaking Waters diptych- Magdalena
Samela Harris. ‘Artist says outside walls are for her’ The Advertiser August 20, 2008
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/the-margins-are-the-thing/story-e6freeu3-1111117241509
In this mixed media instillation called Original Skin, Lauryn Arnott explores existential aspects of the female body- its beauty, decay, its transformations and flaws. In this the female figure is not primarily virtuous or a classical ideal, but rather an expression of the human spirit ~ capricious, sublime, volatile and morally ambivalent. The question of being human is a central theme in these mixed media drawings. The figure relates not only to self but also to identity. The body is represented as the seat of identity.
Shaped by the flaws of difference and exclusion resultant from migration, birth and cultural status, Arnott’s drawings explore the body as more than surface, as they give form to those experiences which take place in the margins between ‘inside and outside’. The relationship between power and vulnerability is an important element in her drawings and prints. They offer no comfort, only the questioning of the relationship between victims and oppressors. Under Mugabe’s rule people have had to defy the system in order to affirm their human existence and therefore affirm life. Death, as does life, exists in our every moment. The figure in the triptych titled Death is a womb is an affirmation of life over death, as it portrays a resurrection.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © LAURYN ARNOTT
Image: Titles of individual pictures Death is a Womb triptych- Breaking Waters diptych- Magdalena
Samela Harris. ‘Artist says outside walls are for her’ The Advertiser August 20, 2008
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/the-margins-are-the-thing/story-e6freeu3-1111117241509
Death is a womb triptych
Monoprint and charcoal in Fabriano Rosapino paper
144 x 50 cms
Breaking Water diptych
Monoprint and charcoal in Fabriano Rosapino paper
144 x 50 cms
Magdalena
Monoprint on Fabriano Rosapino paper
144 x 50 cms
