Ambiguous Encounters with Desire by Lennis Victoria
The American-born and New Zealand domiciled photographer Julie Linowes situates her art practice in a psychoanalytic framework. She explores a surrealist aesthetic and conveys a surrealist essence of the erotic in her challenging and often confrontational scenes that are reminiscent of dreams. The works explore, both the pre-oedipal and oedipal dynamics imprinted in childhood, the transitions between these two dynamics in the development of the human subject, and the ways in which they shape our experience of desire in later life. The vast picture planes, unencumbered by glass, give the photographs an immediacy granting one level of accessibility. On a second level, the reflective polished aluminum borders give the photographs weight and provide the viewer with a sense of being in the presence of precious objects. The works are selected from a series of personal narratives that continue Linowes' exploration of the theme of desire. The series will ultimately comprise a three-act body of work when completed in 2005.
Linowes acknowledges the influence of the psychoanalytic theories of Christopher Bollas and James Grotstein. These theorists address notions of the object in relation to its absence, presence, and the uncanny, with particular reference to the origins of this relationship in the pre-oedipal. Grotstein, writing on the subject of absence and presence has this to say: “In every absence, from infancy onward, there exists a felt presence [of the object] that either hounds or protects that absence but that certainly occupies it.”
It is in this context that the issue of the object—the presence of an absence and the absence of a presence—have pre-occupied Linowes on a profound level in her later work. In Fall from Grace, Act II: Shadow of Desire, Linowes is dealing with the psychoanalytic frame of dreaming in which there are multiple selves participating in the dream: the self inside the dream and the self who produces the dream for the edification of the integrated self. In her works, the photographer’s props, such as a tripod, camera bag, and a light meter, are signifiers for the producer of the dream narrative. Ambiguity is an overriding factor in all the unconscious dramas Linowes stages as she switches from diverse locations that range from the studio to a railway station, a spiral staircase, and a corporate office kitchen. Linowes constructs interior and exterior settings that include the familiar surrealist tropes of disembodied mannequin torsos and hands, a doll’s head and doll’s arms depicted in enigmatic juxtapositions. Linowes inserts herself in these scenes as both the subject and object of her desire. In self representation Linowes is sometimes nude and sometimes clothed in the same article of lingerie that could be either a nightie or a petticoat. The dream-like quality of her works is reinforced in her depiction of self in an ethereal guise; she could be sleeping and in that state of simultaneously observing the self in action, and being the self. Linowes appropriates surrealist tropes to subvert the original misogynist intent of the early male surrealist artists and re-presents them to portray her interpretation of a pre-oedipal symbiotic relationship and to symbolize the characters that comprise an oedipal family drama centered on desire. The autobiographical content in Linowes' narratives is further evident in the subtle clues that indicate her presence and absence: clues that can be gleaned by the objects that get left behind. These are reminders to the viewer that the model is a self representation, and that the shuttered eye is both the observer and the participant in each of her scenes. The viewer encounters a self in the reflective aluminum borders of the works and is witness to Linowes' actions of encountering herself.
The apple motif that abounded in Fall from Grace, Act I: Describing Desire is still a significant presence in this exhibition. However, it has now become a poignant single engorged apple that changes color from red symbolic of passion, blood, and desire to a purple for dominance associated with patriarchal authority to green for envy depending on its role in the separate scenes. Envy changes ownership between the male and female protagonists indicated by whether the green apple is in the clutch of a male or a female mannequin hand (or in Linowes' own hand). Woman and her fall from grace are implicated in the symbolism inherent in the apple motif and the maternal is further emphasized with the ostrich egg and the doll’s head. The ostrich egg is an object that signifies the uncanny in relation to the symbolism it conjures in association with fertilization and in its womb-like dimensions. The doll’s head is symbolic of a baby and uncanny in its androgynous blankness as if it is the shell of the child that woman is meant to carry inside of her. The birthing of desire and the symbiotic relationship between mother and child in the pre-conscious stage of human subject formation is suggested through the shell motif. This shell motif is a transition object that floats in a seemingly irrelevant isolation and yet it serves to echo the ebb and flow of the ocean and to indicate a connection with the watery fabric to reinforce the notion of the fluid nature of the birthing of desire. As a transition object it also marks the space between mother and child.
A haunting quality permeates each of the scenes as narratives unfold that appear to be about a journey, a relentless journey that has neither a beginning nor an ending. A suitcase reveals its contents; disparate images disturb. Is the baby symbolized by the doll’s arm, going down the plug hole or is it emerging from the dark? Conundrums in Linowes' narrative are manifold. A feminine shoelace weaves its way through the scenes of oppositional desires and emotions that jostle for expression in the performances that the viewer stands outside of as witness to Linowes' struggle to name the unnamable. The bridal veil reappears in Act II as a metaphor for the mother; however, it is no longer seen in its traditional association with the head. This veil has been violated; torn and attached to the sole (soul) of the father’s shoe. In another instance the bridal veil is worn as an apron. In both these cases it is now soiled. The eternal triangle of the family drama confronts the viewer in bizarre settings,and the desire of the child to be the mother; to walk in the father’s shoes heightens the sexual tension that casts an ever present shadow of desire. The female shoe changes colour depending on its role as an indicator of emotion and vacillates between the red of desire and the green of envy. The child who had once stood on the father’s shoes and danced to his tune is now insinuating herself between the male and female parents. Mannequin torsos stand sentinel with the male torso in hard edge light and the softened curves of the female torso to indicate the maternal.
Traces of unrequited desire are the shadows that Linowes alludes to in her subtle openings to another reality that may reside behind the staged sets in each of her frames. These openings are integral to the surreal aesthetic that informs Linowes' work and the skill with which she manipulates her images is testimony to the risks she takes in all aspects of the production of her finished photographs. There is a dichotomy between the suffused light and romantic atmosphere in some of her shots where she appears to be surrendering to the romance of desire and the play between the vertical and horizontal planes and the harsh colors in others that suggest a sense of futility in the confusion of desire. The all-pervading ambiguity in the reading of Linowes' works stems from her juxtaposition of imagery that addresses the psychoanalytical, and the debris of a fragmented and seemingly incoherent outer reality. The chaos that emanates from emotions driven by desire has its roots in the familial triangle for Linowes, and she has depicted her journey through metaphors and symbols that are personal to her. But above all, the viewer also has the sense that there is a phoenix arising from these ashes, that death through chaotic fragmentation is the necessary prelude to the birth of an integrated whole. The enigma for the viewer is not to try and unravel the threads that weave myriad permutations of desire in alien dream scenes that Linowes has created, but rather to accept Linowes' invitation to encounter the self in relation to her expressions of the ambiguities of desire. I conclude with a poignant statement by Bollas; one that perhaps summarizes the intent that underpins Linowes' art photography: “In a particular sense, we live our life in our own private dreaming.”
i. Bollas, Christopher. (1992). Being a Character, Psychoanalysis & Self Experience. Hill and Wang. p. 19.
ii. Grotstein, James. (2000). Who is the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream? The Analytic Press. p. xxvii.