 |
| Absent Father: Julie Clarke (2011) 17 x 22 cm |
This is my response to Mark's last artwork in the Collisions project, in which he utilized the craft of macrame. I began from the premise that traditionally, macrame was considered the business of men, since sailors often made macrame objects when they were away from home at sea. The laborious knotting and tying of the string is indicative of the bonding of one thing to another ~ a collision that forms a loose pattern design representing filaments of life that fasten us together.
I'd also been discussing with Mark the notion of the absent father. A post war phenomenon in which one of several things occurred to create the father's absence. Either he was killed, deserted his family after repatriation, or was physically present, but spiritually absent and disengaged from his family after returning to civilian life. Many brought home their anger, some remained hyper-vigilant seeking to resurrect the excitement of war, others simply withdrew.
In order to create this work I used photo transfer method and acrylic paint on canvas board. I chose an image of a lone ANZAC from a stained glass window installed in the Gryphon Gallery in the Graduate Center at the University of Melbourne, which celebrates those who served and died in the first world war. The soldier is, what Michel Foucault called a 'docile body' (Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1975), one that has been disciplined and controlled until it becomes a machine, able to exert control and power over itself and others. Along with this image I've included one from an American photographer that depicts a naked young man, using a large wrench to tighten a screw. These iconic images of masculinity are well known to us. The men are young and fit and are presented as somewhat heroic and unbreakable, when in fact the opposite was true; many returned from war broken and disillusioned with life.
Pearls are as significant for me as they are for Mark. These 'tears from the God's' are appropriate not only because they speak to loss and anguish, but because they are 'cultured'. Fake pearls are homogeneous and can be reproduced uniformly ~ real pearls, although they look circular have an irregular surface, thus revealing their individuality. I intended in this work to create an image of distance, a relic perhaps of past notions of masculinity?
The standing army is a modern phenomenon. I think the masculinity you discuss are from much earlier times, when ideas about the ordeal (wager) as a trial of strength alliterated a symbolic order males took a place in and were judged against.
ReplyDeleteEven now on the US Army website
ReplyDeletehttp://www.goarmy.com/soldier-life/becoming-a-soldier/basic-combat-training/phase-1-red.html
Soldiers are put through rigorous training including physical fitness tests to determine whether they are suitable to become soldiers. They are also subjected to Tactical Foot March, Basic Rifle Marksmanship, Engagement Skills and Situational Training Exercises as well as Field Training Exercises, Confidence Obstacle Course and the Tactical Foot March. Weapon training and Night infiltration.
Sociologist Michael Kimmel explored popular perceptions of ideal leaders that prevailed in 1979. 'What he finds is that the working class man epitomized masculinity whereas the manhood of highly educated elite men was questionable since their class culture had protected them from the harsh realities of life'.
http://www.neoamericanist.org/paper/mahoney-article-masculinity-and-american-invasion-panama
Interesting don't you think that masculinity becomes one of class difference!
Chris Barron wrote the following comment about this post on my face book site on Sunday at around 2.47 pm.
ReplyDelete"Such beautiful work Julie, highly controlled baroque".