The Frames In Between

Artis : Kirsty Ludbrook

“THE SECRET GARDEN”

“But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgements, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very queer. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quite continuously a sense of their existence and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create…”

- Mrs. Dall oway, Virginia Wolf, 1925

The works that Kirsty Ludbrook realised for the exhibition “The Frames in Between”, showcase a series of large paintings and silk embroideries depicting elusive heroïnes who, despite being portrayed under the influence of a Japoniste style, culturally cross any geographical/cultural boundary, by epitomising a timeless and multifaceted idea and vision of the modern woman. In fact, the artist’s subjects seem to syncretize a wide spectrum of feminine dimensions, ranging from George Sand’s intellectual intuition, to Virginia Wolf’s psychological “écriture” & arriving at Sophia Coppola’s ambiguous female characters.

Unlike other women artists, Ludbrook’s research on the feminine universe does not uniquely investigate sexuality and gender, but rather focuses on the feminine figure as an abstract chart to map her introspective

journey. Rather than choosing a linear narration to communicate emotions, the artist uses details of the female body as the reification of transitory sensations, of a melancholic sensuality, using glances on unique fleeting moments that result in a quite unusual dialogue with the viewer. In such a way, every scene closely seems totrack a momentary thought, a simultaneously direct and indirect inner monologue.

The magnified frames of a haunch’s curves or the back of a head, make her sitters’ momentarily stilled, enveloped in the vague space of a secret soliloquy. Their identity are fluid, nuanced: they can be elegiac or erotic, an homage to something lost or never quite gained, a study on both negation and yearning. It’s impossibile to know whether she -who appears in so many guises- was ever, in the act of being represented, aware that someone was looking at her (the observer is often innocent of the observer). Whether we read the artist rejection of frontal or complete perspective of her subjects as a reflection of her inner life, orread the focus on her body as an indication of sensual preoccupations, her feminine portraits are ultimately irreducible and as such can be whoever we want them to be.[1] The artist enters her sitters’ inner boudoirs or “Jardins Secrets”, and stages a complex vision of the contemporary women, regardless of any Western-

Eastern physical and psychological features. Expressing a highly spontaneous and antirhetorical style, the particular choice of transferring her painting’s compositions onto embroidery panels, gives her work a dynamic appearance, conjuring up the distinction between painterly and perceptual space. The uncanny element of nostalgia infused within her iconic portraits, creates an environment latent with emotional states, producing a rarefied sense of intimacy, as if the artist identifies in both her subjects and her creation process, a visual metaphor of her interior search for senses and contents. Ludbrook’s personal narrative functions as a visual passageway to unveil repressed folds and enclaves of the feminine soul. The figures moving, or rather floating into space, becomes here, the key to penetrate the untold dimension of what sometimes words fail to express.

Kirsty Ludbrook’s visual glossary and aesthetics clearly derive from the illustrative creative world, which raises the question: “Where and when can we draw the line between comic-style illustration and Fine art?” From the sixties, those two visual practices have been often converging, signalling a new idea of social culture, epitomised by masters ranging from comic designers such as Ron Frenz (Marvel’s Spiderman illustrator…), Hugo Pratt and Milo Manara to fine artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockey, or more recently John Wesley (to cite a few…). The truth is that it is increasingly difficult to come out with a definition that istinguishes art from design, video art from music clips, theatrical performances from art performances etc… for they all keep juxtaposing and overlapping within a time where “creativity” has become an extraordinarily large umbrella that galvanises almost anything in what art historians determine as “material culture”. Although those kaleidoscopic practices are all essential components aimed at visually defining our (g)local?? both social and individual identity, trying to initiate a discourse on such conceptual ground, would be tremendously overwhelming and probably misplaced in this particular occasion.

In the context of Kirsty Ludbrook’s present show, I believe it’s appropriate to suggest how the object and aesthetics of graphic illustration and fine art can be distinguished according to the way images are supposed to be consumed. In other words, while storyboard illustrations are meant to be “read” according to preestablished spatial and time sequences, artworks need to be “observed”, often requiring a more personal and engaged interaction within a prolonged span of time.

When Kirsty Ludbrook uses “graphic-like” iconography and lines to realise artworks, her perspectives and large format compositions inevitably intrude on the viewers’ space, opening to other possible worlds, within her and the audience’s collective imagination, offering the possibility of (re)contextualising both the narrative and the way her works act on both our emotions and thoughts.

1] J. Higgie, Alone Again, or, The Persistent and Enigmatic subject of Women Turning Away, Freeze, July-August 2009

- by Dominique Lora

BIASA artspace
jl. raya seminyak 34, kuta 80361,
bali, indonesia
t. +623618475766 | f. +62361730766
info@baisaart.com | www.biasaart.com
Start Time : July, 16 [star-year] at 6:00 pm
End Time : August, 16 2009 at 9:00 pm

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