Claudia Hadwen
Northern Beaches Secondary College Manly Campus
LIMINAL RITES: ALIENATION, LOSS, MYSTERY, INTRUSION, UNCERTAINTY
Graphic Design
Photoshop
In my body of work, home interiors are subverted from representing privacy, growth, direction, intimacy and happiness into alienation, loss, mystery, intrusion and uncertainty. Inspired by Arnold van Gennep's ethnography, my work follows the subject undergoing a liminal (transition) rite, a general structural experience for all humans. It communicates the awe accompanying rites of adolescence, with their immense possibilities of change, and the world's dreamlike nature. My work leaves the rite's results open to audience interpretation as it has left no visible effects on the figure, just as our own encounters with periods of upheaval engender intangible changes in identity.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: Salvador Dali, Vincent van Gogh, René Magritte, Arnold van Gennep
Marker's Commentary
The universal theme of the psychological experience has been captivatingly visualised in this compelling series. Liminal Rites: alienation, loss, mystery, intrusion, uncertainty navigates compelling, unsettling imagery of the subconscious that connects the physical feelings and experiences of the individual. Appropriating the surrealistic lens, domestic spaces are transformed. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. Still life, landscapes and dream worlds are integrated judiciously, tilting and shifting, with the placement of the figures building a disturbing experience for both the subject and the audience. The subconscious world impinges onto the real, informing and confounding our life’s journey.
The viewer is captured by the theatrical employment of chiaroscuro and monotone palettes and provide an unnerving element and gravitas to the series. Mindful viewpoints are employed to allow for the voyeuristic nature of each scene. Constructed, ‘Photoshopped’ images are visualised through a painter’s eye enhancing the realism of these powerful, irrational dreamscapes