'Why are male artists so obsessed with fucking the dead girl?' 

 

Because dead girls can't speak. My work is concerned with the violence of the male gaze, exploring what it means to live within a body or space but not feel as though you have possession or control of your identity. I want to interrogate the 'hysteries'  surrounding topics of gender, power and mental health following the spectre of Plath, Woolf and other 'hysterics' who've been culturally disfigured, and what my relationship to this means.  As a teenager I saw John Millais’ famous painting of Ophelia as a reflection of myself. This led to a peculiar practise of mimesis: ‘performing’ drowning in the river next to my house one frosty afternoon in February, in order to ‘become’ her. 

 

My work explores the sensation of drowning in relation to feminist practice, asking what  it means to spill or spit myself onto these images of femininity, playing with notions of desire and disgust.  A desire to ‘become’ the dead girl, but a confusion over where this desire comes from. Revulsion for the acknowledgement of the systems which produce this desire and the recognition that my feelings are produced within a complex semiotic code which I do not have full agency over. The majority of my work consists of immersive installations which create a sensual, surreal and bodily experience for the viewer. My work engages with the language of sensation and feeling, creating seductive, over saturated, yet almost nauseating bodies of work in order to play out these dichotomies. 

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Contact Details:

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Email: jennifermilnerlunt@gmail.com

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifermilnr

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Studio at: APT Studios & Gallery, Harold Wharf, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London. SE8 4SA

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