Sue Vickerman - Translating the Body

Exhibition PosterTranslating the Body subverted the tradition of art nude and the female body. Feminists in the 1970s coined the term ‘the male gaze’ for the way images of women are created by male eyes and for men’s appreciation. In this exhibition, the model herself was in control of how she is seen.

 

Photographic artists Ann Evans, Ashwin Vyas, Michael Kilyon, Lois Brothwell and Phil Moody, and sculptor Judith Glynn, allowed life model Sue Vickerman, whom each has employed or worked with in recent years, to select, curate and in some cases produce (from their original photographs) these exhibits.

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The works demonstrated a diversification from the traditional power-relationship of the male artist over his female model. Today the impact of the model, as a creative individual, on the final ‘translation’ is more likely to be acknowledged, with the artist-model relationship being seen as collaborative.

Debatably the male gaze is a thing of the past, but with the advent of social media, where images proliferate of young women’s and men’s bodies that have been modified into fantasy ideals, has a new kind of oppressive gaze evolved? Are we oldies thankfully well out of it?

Sue Vickerman is a poet, writer and literary translator who also models. The trigger for this exhibition was Sue turning sixty and reflecting on how our bodies’ ageing appearance affects our lives and how we feel about ourselves.

 

Below Sue explains her relationships with the artists and how she directed the final works included in the exhibition:

 

Lois Brothwell

 

Stockings, Sue Vickerman (from a photograph by Lois Brothwell)Stockings, Sue Vickerman (from a photograph by Lois Brothwell)

 

I got to know Canadian-bred (British born) artist Lois, an inexplicably zealous Anglophile, because she attended (also having a zeal for life-drawing) various groups for which I modelled. Lois says working from the model requires not only well-honed technical skills but intuition, to capture the model’s spirit.

Lois employed me for a photo-shoot when she was working on a series of paintings for her eventual solo exhibition, ‘Dales and Dames’ (Gallery on the Green, 2018). She feels using photographs as aids provides artists with a valuable shortcut for refreshing the mind about how the face and body react. I had to strike particular poses from which Lois could subsequently work; for example, riding a galloping horse. Later a second shoot took place, which I remember as being recreational and zany, probably initiated by me, involving some dressing up in crazy attire. In 2023 I got Lois’s permission to include some images from the second shoot in this exhibition. However, when I sought her opinion on my selection, she expressed reservations:

 "The gauzy skirt ones were your idea not mine – I think you were into burlesque or some such at the time. But they don’t look like fun and games to me; they have an earnest vibe about them and the body language is vulnerable, like you’re obeying orders and a man is behind the camera. Could this be the male gaze creeping into your exhibition?”

On reflection I agreed, seeing the images as veering towards erotica. Not that I have anything against erotica, but such content would be a misrepresentation of the shoot, which was a playful and fun interaction between friends – two older women. I hence spent hours experimenting in Photoshop with techniques such as posterizing, thresholding and cartooning until the images were as zany as the shoot, with no realism. I did not run my creations by Lois: she will first see them when the exhibition opens.

 

Ann Evans

 

Untitled, Ann EvansUntitled, Ann Evans

 

I became friendly with artist Ann Evans at life-drawing sessions in the studio of Sam Dalby RP in Settle where I regularly modelled. In 2023 I was employed by Ann for a number of 1:1 photographic shoots in her studio when she was developing work for a joint exhibition with Gina Tawn, ‘Ghyll, Gryke and Glyph’, at Farfield Mill (2024), which (broadly) explored the interconnection of human and land forms. I seem to remember a lot of intense conversations about nature, the universe, spiritual connection with the land and our need to live in an inspiring place.

I was completely awed by what Ann created for that exhibition from our shoots, including the tactile way they are presented on cradled birch panels, so when I asked her to contribute to ‘Translating the Body’, I invited Ann to select, present and hang her own works with no intervention from me.

In Ann’s words: “This series of monochrome prints seeks to alter our perception of the body, so often portrayed in a detached, idealised way. Here, skin ripples and folds, glittering like water. Bone stretches flesh, suggesting the clint-and-gryke etch of limestone pavement. Limbs offered ‘in extremis’ become conduits to the land, to fell, gryke or ghyll… Connections emerge, triggering the imagination.. Inhabited, eroding flesh shows its nature, speaks of our place in the biosphere.”

 

Judith Glynn

 

untitled, Judith Glynnuntitled, Judith Glynn

 

I became friendly with Judith Glynn when she began attending the Dean Clough life drawing group in Halifax where I have been modeling for fifteen years. Judith does not attend the group to draw; instead she slips quietly round the outskirts of the ring of artists at their easels, changing her position regularly to get views of me from every angle, her hands all the while deftly sculpting, using wire hung in big loops over one arm.

Judith writes, “I originally trained as a doctor, and started sculpting in response to changes in my life. I draw on my training in anatomy to depict human life and interactions, working in wire and other materials to produce figurative and abstract sculptures. All proceeds I make from this work go to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) to support their work in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere”.

Judith’s sculptures of me distinctly represent my physique. When I visited her home studio, her sculptures of other models from whom she has worked from life had a range of physiques. Judith asked me to model for a day-workshop she was running at Northlight Studios in Hebden Bridge, where she has since had a solo exhibition. I was intrigued to model for a sculpting group – wondering whether interpretations purely in wire of a particular body are as variable as portraits of an individual by different artists. The impressive results – albeit by beginners – confirmed my wonderings. How participants ‘saw’ me and their choices of wire and how to use them resulted in a diversity of representations, unique to each sculptor’s perception.

 

Mike Kilyon

 

 Photograph of 'Suki Illuminated' (3D installation), Mike KilyonPhotograph of 'Suki Illuminated' (3D installation), Mike Kilyon

 

As a photographer Mike Kilyon has exhibited his photographic ‘translations’, including 3D installations, around Yorkshire, while being engaged primarily with publishing translations of poetry and literature, as managing editor of a small independent press.

Mike’s first creative collaboration with me was in 2012 when we began making video shorts together of the life-rooms in which I was employed. Mike then spent a year in Shanghai where he saw artists using the tool of the camera in new ways. He was impressed by photo-imagery printed onto silk. He says the notion of layering translucent images and the possibilities of movement immediately struck him. On his re-turn to the UK he began to explore silk, light and movement. For this he used photographs taken of me in Yorkshire-based artist PATRICIA OXLEY’s studio where Pat allowed him to be a fly on the wall while she was experimenting with projecting computer-drawn photographs of me onto my body for her MA course. From that shoot he not only developed his silk installation but we also made a video together as part of the ‘Suki’s Life Room’ series.

Mike’s installation is the culmination of his explorations towards the re-creation of the body in 3-D. In 2018 I saw an earlier version of it, exhibited in Settle. Last year I invited Mike to extend this piece for inclusion in my exhibition.

 

 

Phil Moody

 

Arm, Sue Vickerman (from a photograph by Phil Moody)Arm, Sue Vickerman (from a photograph by Phil Moody) 

 

Phil Moody is an artist, filmmaker and musician who has exhibited widely and performed internationally including as a member of the 1980s British anarchist punk band Chumbawamba. His creative life across all media has always been politically engaged: his website philmoody.com showcases a range of esoteric photographic projects that present artifacts and domestic details which serve as triggers for the viewer’s imagination in terms of social and political history. However Phil lets his work speak for itself without explaining.

Phil first encountered me as an ‘artifact’ on the Bradford arts scene, where he has often drawn me from life in various contexts. Knowing of Phil’s photographic work, I asked him to do a shoot with me to produce illustrative material for ‘True Life Nude’, the third book of a trilogy I had been working on since 2013, telling the story of fictional life model ‘Suki’. The photo shoots took place in Phil’s studio and out-doors in woodland (Shipley Glen). Some of the products appeared in my eventual book.

In 2023 I got Phil’s permission to draw on those photographs for this exhibition. I think it was the feminist in him who, on principle, handed over absolute control to the model of his entire archive from those shoots: almost seven hundred images.

Phil is the only one of my participants who has had zero input regarding the exhibits. The selection, adjustments, modifications and crops of Phil’s original photographs were made exclusively by me, however at the production stage I had to call upon the technical expertise of Mike Kilyon.

 

Ashwin Vyas

 

 The Garden, Ashwin VyasThe Garden, Ashwin Vyas

 

Ashwin met me through attending a life-drawing group in Bingley at which I regularly modelled. He had already experimented with art nude photography of the female body and he employed me for a photo-shoot to pursue this. Ashwin’s classical black and white images are largely representational: he likes telling stories, partly due to the inspiration of his historic villa and garden in Bingley (where the shoot took place), and usually on the dark side – though left open for the viewer to interpret. I was flattered by his expressed intention to highlight my “extraordinary flexibility” and the way I can “fold my body into interesting geometric shapes”.

Ashwin and I had protracted discussions about what to select for this exhibition. He acquiesced to my wish to present one series as a quasi-installation – ‘salon-style’ in baroque gold frames on a deep crimson wall. He also gave in to my insistence on cropping images to remove my head, because I did not want the stories to be about me as a person. I rejected Ashwin’s wish to include an armpit that he found particularly beautiful because I find my – all – armpits particularly unbeautiful. We seemed more aligned, however, on how the second series of images should be actually presented. Then Ashwin got distracted by having to get his hip replaced, at which point I swept the entire project out of his hands. We are still friends.

 

 

Dates:

    3rd to 24th August 2024

Artists:

    Sue Vickerman
    Lois Brothwell
    Ann Evans
    Judith Glynn
    Mike Kilyon
    Phil Moody
    Ashwin Vyas

 

 

 



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