Sweets and fairy tales

For a number of years my work has been concerned with issues of female representation. This present work reflects my ongoing research and is concerned with personal experience, which has led me to question how identity is formed. As a woman, I believe it is important to reveal how we are shaped by our Western culture with its traditions and customs. I believe that we are taught to be women and so I would like to show how we accept and absorb the attitudes of society towards us from the time we are very young.

In this work, I take autobiography as a point of departure and I consider my past and probe my childhood recollections… Memory is investigated and questions are raised about what is reality, what is fantasy. I try to distinguish between what I remember and what have I learned from stories told to me by family and friends. Many of my memories seem concerned about food, whether I was picking blueberries, wearing a dress with a strawberry pattern on it or eating ice-cream when I was good.

Food also seems to be an important feature in fairy tales. Most children are brought up with fairy tales--stories of princes, princesses and beautiful castles--something to dream about. But childhood is not always rosy, there are times when expressing oneself is difficult, feelings become knotted and tangled. When frightened or scared things appear prickly and unnerving. As I manipulate the materials I am thinking about my experiences, memories and fantasies. It is not without irony that I am presenting my happy childhood.

To materialize these ideas, I work with metaphors and analogies exploring the possibilities that are found in the relationships between objects and images. I am interested in the notions of conflict and complexity that arise when the descriptive and the abstract are juxtaposed. I have created organically shaped abstract objects and projected descriptive images, which are drawn and painted directly on the walls. This juxtaposition suggests a narrative for viewers to interpret.

I wonder if there is an unknown that cannot be known-that may be suggested by the spaces between, the gaps, shadows and transparencies that are created. The ephemeral aspect of installation suggests, like life, that nothing is permanent. The work is about exploration and discovery, and in this environment of juxtaposed fragments a space is then created where memories can be exchanged and experiences related.

Janet Logan