(photo: Lisa-Marie Johnson)All the way back in 2009 I was invited to perform alongside artist Lisa-Marie Johnson in a piece called 'The Parameters of the Gothic'. This was my first jaunt into the realm of performance art and apart from a few experiments, I haven't had much of an opportunity to explore the discipline further as a practitioner. I've certainly read a lot about and been inspired by the ideas and visions generated by women performance artists -
Amanda Coogan has been a huge inspiration to me in particular. I came across these images recently - above, the National College of Art and Design end of year show in March 2009 which took place in the since closed Light House cinema in Smithfield and below, performing in the vast Shunt Gallery, London, June 2009 as part of a
MART ensemble exhibition. During the performance I got to randomly shave my head! It was art, clearly! After the performance in London, a woman approached me and said she was a scout for Eastenders and was very impressed by my performance. That was almost as bizarre as the performance itself.
Lisa-Marie says of her work at the time:
My work considers the notion of public space how we as inhabitants of our dwellings consider consumerism,it carries conditions like a human condition, a very real facilitation of a new island or state belonging, space and site has the ability to be transformed into an urban natural, in that, it can be looked at, it can be thought about and understood, it can even be traded as cultural capital, it can be experienced in all these ways and yet also realised it is residues of a homeland , my home my land .This work is to do with social change and how we evolve in an urbanised context .While also questioning a form of public art, what public are we affecting and how much and how does live art deal with this direct public response /relationship.
Looking extremely sinewy in these interesting shots by Trixie Rose Photography taken at Bella's Dia De Los Meurtos show in October.
(photo: Lisa-Marie Johnson)
This was SO AWESOME! PaperDolls gals, Me, Karen and Elaine had an amazing day today, appearing as 'The Marie Antoinettes' as part of the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope protests which took place in Dublin city today:
On the other side, children were taking to poking Karen with sticks, but she efficiently batted them away with her lace fan. Some anonymous aggressors threw unfriendly things at us; one woman got a half-full bottle of pop hard in her face as she crossed Elaine's path. One man shouted at me: "You bitch!" Kind of racy eh? I flicked him some cake.
The best bit was swinging along the top level of double-decker buses and making eyes at the passengers. Millions of camera phones, camera eyes, cameras on sticks, sound recording devices and boom mics were thrust in our direction; more cake, more shouting, more grimacing. The camera people point into their lens repetitively, eyes going straight to screen before lifting again to shoot. Karen said one man followed her the whole way, dedicating an entire memory card of her photographic data alone, "A whole card!" He exclaimed at her, amused. We are bloody beautiful though.
More amazing here.
(photo: Malcolm McGettigan)
Photo by Ross Waldron
