The Project

By the time I was seventeen I was going to be perfect. I was going to be the lead guitarist of my very own punk band; I was going to be confident, popular and oh so thin. Seventeen was years away; I had plenty of time to do it. I used to fantasise about this perfect version of me and her perfect life. I even gave her a name – I called her Kate. Now, her life was obviously a far more attractive prospect than mine, filled with orthodontists and maths lessons as it was, and I began to spend more and more time in my fantasy dreamworld. Over time, the characters and stories I created to augment Kate and her perfect life (So many I could have written a whole series of books) started to acquire a life of their own, and became almost as real and dear to me as the inhabitants of my real life; leading me into all sorts of philosophical conundrums about the nature of reality! Since I left school and the real world started demanding more and more of my attention, my daydreams faded into the background, only to be retreated to in times of severe boredom or insomnia.

The interesting thing was, that although I grew deeply involved with all the characters in my stories, giving them entire life histories and complex personalities, Kate herself, (Supposedly the star of the show) always remained curiously one-dimensional and distant. Due to her perfection, I never really identified with her the way I did my more dysfunctional creations. She remained a far off, hazy, ideal that, as I grew older and older, I knew I had little chance of becoming.

Over the years my idea of what constitutes perfect has changed dramatically, and I have always strived to be whatever I happened to think that was at the time, whether it involved colour co-ordinated accessories or good karma.

It should be easily understood by now that fantasy is very important to me, and always seems to crop up in my work in one way or another, often unintentionally. I have never been a fan of reality, especially not in art. As an interesting point, Oscar Wilde was in perfect agreement with my point of view. There are many quotes I could use to illustrate this, but a few of my favourites, (which also perfectly outline my practice) would include:

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to
be an artist.”
“Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things is the proper aim of art.”
“(Art) is a veil, rather than a mirror.”

It would appear today that we have all become far too jaded. I was recently told that I was very unusual because I can look at the images of women in glossy magazines like Vogue, and see only beauty and mystery, instead of feeling depressed and inadequate in the face of such misogynistic representations of an ideal. It’s a sorry state indeed we have gotten ourselves into if we cannot look at a simple beautiful image, whether it be in art or a magazine, without working ourselves into a depressive frenzy trying to read the deeper socio-political messages imbued in it. When I decided to set out to become an artist, I just wanted to make the world a better place. To give people a moment of joy and beauty, to envelop them in mystery and layer after layer of elaborate fantasy. I am not saying my work doesn’t contain negative or disturbing aspects (Rather the reverse I fear) but the world has enough ugly realism in it without me adding to the problem.

As artists, certain things are expected of us. The myth of the artist as genius is a well established one, even the myth of the artist as myth itself. Many artists assume alter egos and pseudonyms. Their work even changes when produced by these alter egos. Cindy Sherman is a fascinating example as she uses artifice in her work to conceal her real identity so completely no-one really knows who she is. The archetype of the wild artist is very well known to the public, and the YBA’s live up to this image, nobody knows to what extent intentionally. One of my favourite contemporary artists Nobuyoshi Araki lives up to the image he has created for himself so much that nobody can tell where the myth ends and reality starts. From what I gather, in order to succeed in the art world, or indeed, in the world in general, you require an image. Even if that image is one rooted in non-identity, as Cindy Sherman’s is, it is still something for people to remember you and your work by. Taking into account the prevalence of myth and fantasy in my work, I have decided to attempt to become a myth myself.

This project was originally undertaken as part of my uni work and formed the contents of a scrapbook. However, dubious though I am, I have finally decided to give technology a try - it seemed a shame to go to all this effort and have only a few people ever see it.

I have always been in love with the fifties dream, (Not to be confused with the real 50s) - a Pleasantville style world where everything is just super. I am also interested in the mysterious world of fashion, especially the ideas of perfection it sells, a perfection that is always just out of reach. I love the fifties fashion and would like to become one of those perfect women - a person that has most likely never existed. There is only one problem, I am not a fictional character in a 50s sitcom, and you cannot airbrush life. However, I have never been one to let reality get in the way of my plans, and so I have determined to give it a try. Can I become perfect? Can I become a living myth? Probably not, but I need to lose the weight anyway!