Sue Williams
Small Talk, High Heels
Based on a talk to CASW, January 2014
I work primarily through drawing and developing further concepts, resulting in canvas installations, theatre installations, drawing installations and short film. The work is challenging in its links to contemporary lives, the sexualisation of western society and the complexities of human behaviour and communication.
I am constantly researching and developing an understanding of the complex nature of human desire and communication, and the slippage between what is said, what is meant and what is understood. It is always my intention to reveal the ambiguous spaces – the gaps in communication, those in-between places. I am continuously searching for evidence of where we feel secure and where we feel insecure in our lives. It is through the exploration of contemporary life, extending into the virtual cyber-world of fantasy and play, where I observe these relationships and dynamics.
I am interested in the ways in which the world of reality and the cyber-world interact: how they inform one another and alter our understanding of what it is to be male and female. Whilst exploring both the real and the unreal worlds, I am aware of a significant blur between the boundaries of private and public. It seems there is an ongoing erosion between the one world and the other, between reality and fantasy, where human vulnerability and power games act out. In my work I attempt to highlight this erosion and show how it affects our relationships with each other, as human beings, as men and women. It is through the psychologically charged works that I deliberately raise questions about the construction of identity in contemporary culture and the impact on our bodies and our minds.
In order to deconstruct and reconstruct evidence of communication and interpersonal relationships through drawing, I extend this into exploring new concepts and multi-disciplinary art forms, offering a direct response to the complex world of human frailty, ‘the stuff of life’, drawing the viewer into a world of provocative sexual politics.
‘…dirty linen on line…!’
2003 ongoing
Drawing installation
This drawing installation, started in 2003, continues to be the main supplier of my ideas for extended works and concepts. It has over 2,000 drawings founded upon the notion of the spaces in-between – those significant moments that fall through the gap of life.
The drawings are derived from my interpretation of everyday living, drawn from both the virtual world and the real world. Through the process of drawing I reveal my own bigger pictures, the spaces in-between manifesting themselves through edge-defying canvas installations, dance installations, drawing installations and short film.
All my works before 2006 were processes that developed my work to date.
This painting marks my journey into dealing with communication and relationships. It makes reference to the relationship I had with my son, bringing him up as a single parent.
BACK SEAT DRIVER
1984
Oil and wax on canvas 183 x 153 cms
Cardiff County Council Collection
This painting is part of a larger body of work commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales. It makes reference to the empowerment of women in the gym environment. Many women were secretly going to the gym to avoid confrontation within the home.
UNTITLED
1990
Mixed media on canvas 183 x 183 cms
This large work developed from personal experience in dealing with dysfunctional relationships.
SHOW ME THE BED
1995
Mixed media on canvas 366 x 183 cms
Private collection
This is part of a body of work dealing with the female gaze, as opposed to the male gaze. The complexities of the gaze inspired a number of works dealing with the female looking back to the viewer.
‘OH!’
2002
Mixed media on canvas 183 x 183 cms
National Museum & Galleries of Wales Collection
This work is dependent upon the notion of the ‘….tit bits…’, a play with reality and fantasy from a feminine perspective, often subverting the truth through image and text, in both a serious and playful manner.
The Through Glass Series focused upon relationships in the use of mobile telephones and particularly text messaging – a contemporary cultural commodity, which clearly divides fact from fiction and is open to misrepresentation or misinterpretation. True meaning may fall into the gaps between intention and understanding.
Texting is a direct dialogue between two people, which shortcuts normal communication i.e. talking. To explore our dependency and fascination with this technological communication, I recorded every text message I received throughout a period of 12 months, basing a new body of work on the psychological issues related to text messaging. The background against which these portrayed relationships take place, a ‘stage set’, is domestic (the kitchen, living room and the bedroom) or involves public spaces such as bars, clubs, shopping malls and in the streets.
This work resulted in a solo exhibition Small Talk, High Heels touring from 2006 at the Artes Mundi, National Museum & Galleries of Wales; Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea; Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales; National Galleries at both Bulawayo and Harare, Zimbabwe; and finally in 2008 at the Ormeau Baths Gallery Belfast, Ireland.
THROUGH GLASS SERIES 2006 – 07
‘Keep losing U. Talk 2 U soon. : Keep losing U. Talk 2 U soon’
Mixed media on canvas 244 x 244 cms
Commissioned by the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Wales
TULU GIRLS
Funded by Arts Council of Wales Creative Wales Award
Tulu Girls is a multi-disciplinary ‘portfolio’ of work and on-going research that explores contemporary issues of communication in a sexualized western culture. I intend to identify a common ground from which to develop an understanding of cross-boundary experience. Cyber-culture promises an alternative and an enhanced life through the creation of avatar cyber-bodies and participation in cyber ‘communities’. These alternative virtual worlds are potentially dysfunctional as desire for bodily transformations threatens to privilege illusion over reality. How do we communicate to send the “right” messages to each other? Mixed media paintings and drawings comprise canvas, paint, spray paint, cloth material, installations featuring light fittings, beds and a large series of body casts and large projections of drawings on theatre backdrops, theatre/dance costume and design.
Theatre/dance collaborations that I have completed so far include Imbue and Phantoms of Us. Both these dance performances were commissioned by the National Dance Company Wales, collaborating with choreographer Eleesha Drennan.
My materiality (drawing and painting) is central to this development, supporting new concepts for both the costume design and sets for the theatre performances. The concept of Tulu Girls was transformed into a number of human-size body parts dispersed in space for the production of Imbue, with the projection of large images placed on the stage. Phantoms of Us had projections of de-sexualized mannequins and the dancers were dressed in sheer skin material in order to relate to the mannequins.
Further to the dance collaborations, a film concept was developed and created through Tulu Girls. Watch me… I know her, I think I do was commissioned by 0:4W Outcasting: Fourth Wall and exhibited by Glyn Vivian Ffilm 4 in 2013.
In this short film I am both director and choreographer, asking dancer Annabeth Berkeley to respond to a number of psychological issues through a non-verbal form of communication.
A cyber-world of make believe, an adult fantasy world of love, lust and untruths – all of these permeate everyday living allowing the ever-increasing obsessions with the body and the identity of the self. Within cyber-culture, truths can be hidden, both in the physical and the psychological. Self-reflection is not necessary: we lose a sense of reality. What is real and what is unreal? We can become nonentities.
Tulu Girls concepts have been created through installations/exhibition. For example, Dare U Play series (2011).
This series of twenty-five large-scale 5’ x 4’ drawings is my response to the traditional male gaze – images of women gazing back at the viewer with the knowledge that not only can they be the ones to be gazed upon, they in turn can gaze back. The women are rejecting identification through conventional patriarchal ideology, presenting themselves as they wish, on their own terms.
POKE ME series (2012)
Ffin y Parc Gallery, Conwy, North Wales and SL Gallery, Kensington, London
Poke Me is a multi-media painting installation consisting of one hundred 46cms x 46cms multimedia works on canvas
Who shall I be? How will I be? Social utilities offer the opportunity for human transformation to reinvent or offer variations of the truth, enabling her/him to reveal their inner idiosyncrasies knowing that at a press of a button they can delete all traces of themselves. This body of work playfully subverts the male/female desire to tease, provoke and play yet at the same time guarding identity, remaining anonymous. How far can we protect our identity? What is the truth and what are the lies?
In 2010-13 I worked with Roy Campbell-Moore, Chloe Loftus and Jem Treays on SHH!, a theatre and drawing installation. The project was commissioned by National Dance Company Wales, funded by Arts Council of Wales.
It is a theatrical/dance response to the Through Glass series, installing a unique virtual house, a voyeuristic experience that strongly supports my intentions throughout my work. The idea is that we are all on-lookers intrigued by others’ sexual behaviour; curious to watch but not to participate. SHH! offers sexual tensions, sexual ambiguities and dysfunctional relationships. SHH! gave me the opportunity to start exploring the space beyond the canvas into a three-dimensional environment. Here we have a dysfunctional couple in a relationship in which sexual power games and their conflicting personalities crunch up against each other with no specific resolution in sight. The production transforms the performance space into a virtual house – a house with no walls, an installation where the audience are invited voyeurs to a couple’s private relationship and personal dynamics. Each room represents a familiar domestic environment – the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and the living room – highlighting my desire for the mundane and the supposed sense of ‘normal’. This brings together dance and the visual arts within a usual gallery context. This environment blurs the boundaries between conventional theatre performance and gallery installation. The installation consists of music ranging from Chopin, Enimen, Moloko, Patty Smith, Diamanda Galas, and Live Radio broadcast.
CRACKED
Theatre installation 2011-12
Directed by Sue Williams and Roy Campbell-Moore
Costume design – Sue Williams
This theatre installation piece was worked in collaboration with choreographer Roy Campbell-Moore; commissioned by National Dance Company Wales and funded by Cardiff Contemporary.
This is a contemporary response to the Nutcracker Ballet, based on E.T.A Hoffman’s original story. This theatre installation took place in the Wales Millennium Centre and it was an opportunity to develop and highlight the relationship between Clara and Fritz. Clara and Fritz, both of similar ages, develop sexually at different paces and this half hour production enhances the differences both sexually and cerebrally. There is Fritz who is seemingly disturbed and unable to deal with Clara’s sexuality and his aggressive uncontrollable desire to control her. In contrast we are confronted with Clara’s naivety and innocence when it comes to her sexuality and Fritz’ abusive advances.
Note about the contributor
Sue Williams has an exhibition history of solo and group shows on five continents. Her website – nomore.pink– gives further details.
© the artist