Perfection is such a confusing topic. Being perfect is often about what other people think is perfect. Perfection is based either on assumptions of someone’s grandeur and social stature or occasionally generated through artificial imagery. But what happens in reality, when the lights are off and the glamour fades? At one point in our lives we have all come across the sayings “look past the facade” or “read between the lines”, quotes aiming to remind us of the importance of authentic comprehension of situations.
(Where)After is an artwork based on Jan Steen’s 1663 painting A Woman at her Toilet and explores the exact intersection of perception vs reality. Using Steen’s theatrical narrative —peaking into the woman’s boudoir— I create my interpretation in parallel to my previous work “The Swing”. The first depicts an eternal instant that transcends judgments of all sorts, while the second explores a moment of solitude when no one is supposed to look. What triggered me to develop a new context for Steen’s work is the element of voyeuristic pleasure that he forces on the viewer. In contrast to the staged excellence seen in The Swing, I now wanted to show the moment after, behind the curtain, where vulnerability takes over confidence, and the self seizes to be a poetic artifact bound to peoples’ interpretations.
For the realization of this parallel narrative, I utilize the same accessories as the one’s seen on The Swing. Accessories that were meant to add pride in the previous work are now thrown across the bedroom, soulless and empty, leaving the character naked. But there’s more meaning to what’s missing than to what can be seen. One element does not return. The flying heel from The Swing, the very depiction of freedom, is nowhere to be found. It has been on purpose left to roam in the wilderness as a reminder that candid freedom is never supposed to be contained.
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