Woke up with another idea. It was there all the time. I’ve seen and studied this picture ages ago which could be a reason why the mugshots interest me. I should explain.
M-G-M Studios, test photographs (1938) George Hommel, studio photographer
These photographs taken for The Wizard of Oz are test shots for hair, makeup and wardrobe, but of course they are mugshots. Well, as we know Dorothy did kill the first person she meets before teaming up with three strangers only to then kill again. Maybe I should make a visual physiological profile of this psychopathic murderer. This is a big project. I need to remain focused on the 1920s mugshots and uncanny nurses as this is where I am now. Perhaps Dorothy with her psychopathic personality should be my degree project. I need to discuss this with my tutor. I think it would be good to start writing a journal with thoughts, ideas and images of Dorothy so I don’t lose this train of thought.
I’ve been looking at the work of Marlene Dumas. Her paintings have a dark, uneasy feel about them. She captures the fragility of the person she is painting but also reveals a disturbing and unnerving aspect to their personality. For me, her work strips away the layers of deception we all hide under and exposes the true personality.
Marlene Dumas. (1994) Models [ink and chalk on paper] 62 x 50 cm each
Marlene Dumas. (1994) Models detail [ink and chalk on paper] 62 x 50 cm
Marlene Dumas. (1994 – ongoing) Rejects [ink, acrylic paint and chalk on paper] 60 x 50 cm each
Normally I spend hours drawing an image but I wanted to create something fluid and inky. This drawing was completed within 40 minutes. I think it’s been good for me to work at speed as often my work becomes too tight. I’m pleased with the result even though the ink dripped on her forehead. I’m going to make more portraits like this using the mugshots.
Mugshot drawing in ink and chalk
We study people for clues to identity. Hair, clothes, jewellery, facial expressions and much more make the person. When seeing someone for the first time whether in life or in a portrait or photograph we each become a detective searching for evidence to who this person is. Who do you think the women are in the photographs below?
A mother? An actress? A victim?
These women are in fact criminals. When I show you the whole picture you will see that these photos are mugshots. The text on the photographs labels, the women and our perception of who we are looking at immediately changes.
Mug shot of Vera Crichton
Mug shot of Hazel McGuinness
I find these photographs fascinating but I’m not sure where I can go with these at the moment. I’m working with the images of nurses I’ve been collecting and these could be included in that work. I can change the identity of these women by giving them different clothes or adding text to an image.
As part of my research I must re-watch Grayson Perry’s series on identity called Who Do You Think You Are?
Writing my dissertation has led me to have so many ideas for artworks, in fact too many ideas for me to decide what to do next. I keep thinking about domestic rooms with patterned wallpaper. In the room would be something, or perhaps someone, to make the viewer uncomfortable. Nurses are another idea I have. Think Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – cold, cool, unfeeling, controlling. The opposite of what you expect a nurse to be. Maybe I should combine a nurse in a domestic space? I’m not sure.
I’ve been collecting images of nurses from the 1940s and 50s and I have found one I could work with. The colour will take a lot of planning as it is going to influence the way the viewer feels so I have been testing colour over the image. Perhaps after the months of writing my dissertation and not making artwork, I should stop thinking and start painting.
Image research
Experimenting with colour
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
In the last scene of the MGM film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale wakes up in her bed to find herself surrounded by her family. She looks round to see the faces of the people she loves and says, “there’s no place like home”. Dorothy’s trancelike repetition of the phrase “there’s no place like home” condenses the meaning of what home means for each of us. Home is a place we associate with familiarity, love, a safe place, a place of origin. When her Kansas home is uprooted by a violent tornado, Dorothy is terrified. She is transported to Oz, a wonderful place that is not her home (‘no place’), but all the time she yearns to return home. Oz is in fact Dorothy’s home, she never left home. Throughout the film she is surrounded by people and things she knows, but all of which have changed to reveal hidden secrets and emotions – creating the sense of unease, and the uncanny. Although Oz is not real, it is both like home, yet very unlike her home. It is no place like home.
Sarah Bale. (2015) Homesick [digitally layered image]
I took the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz and created a range of images in Photoshop. I wanted them to feel dreamlike, but also capture Dorothy’s terror as her home becomes a place of nightmares.
Sarah Bale. (2015) Homesick [digitally layered image]
I think the intense colour on this image works especially well and evokes the feeling of fear and anxiety. Home, or rather what is going on inside Dorothy’s mind, has become deeply disturbing.
