Legs That Go Go GO! New paintings by Jessica Ballantyne

 

 

The days are getting longer, which means…
more daylight hours in the studio for painting!!
It also means I can almost start cycling to the studio again, through the beautiful Rainham marshes, which is a healthy pleasure:)

I am very happy to announce that the two paintings I have been working on- for too many months now, are finally complete!

This year I am focusing on creating 12 large oil paintings in the theme of bed and dream. These are the first two in the series. See that big canvas behind them that they are resting on in the above picture? I have made two that size that will be the next two paintings…My aim is to have my first solo exhibition in the beginning of 2016!

 

Inspiration

 

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The title, Legs that Go Go GO! is a response to the phrase; “Legs that go on forever” a phrase used to describe a tall, slender (attractive?) women.

I have subverted the phrase with “legs that go go go” not only to insinuate the length and mirrored quality of the legs (that really do “go on forever”) but also to insinuate action…something that is rarely attributed to the female form in art and the media.

These legs are muscular and ready to run!

There are a few artists that were visually inspiring for this piece. Joan Jonas being one and Hans Bellmer being another. Bellmer was interested in the fetish. His dolls incorporate adolescent-looking female parts and clothing.

Although he insisted his work was an opposition to the fascist Nazi government, politics aside, one cannot ignore the nudity and prepubescence of these sexually displayed dolls, that make his work as much of an expression of his own sexuality through the female form, as a rejection of the Nazi rule at the time.

Where Bellmer uses images of adolescence ( school shoes, socks, prepubescent body), I added a more “adult” signifier of sexuality and sexual allure and availability- that of the fishnet stocking.

I chose fishnets because they have the same quality that lace has, which I love for the same reason- in that it covers without covering and reveals without revealing completely.

I placed the legs in an unfamiliar surrounding.

They are the inhabitants of a strange land- a kind of bedding, desert landscape- a soft place to run and walk around. I did this because I find the bedroom has always been an important place for me -a space of comfort, privacy and security- to sleep, to dream, to create, amongst other things 🙂

I also associate the bed with death and rebirth; I see deep sleep as a kind of death- death of ego, and waking up as the rebirth of ego and identity.

 

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I suppose my legs are a direct response to Bellmer’s leggy doll; a sexualised and disfigured female anatomy. However the response is a critical one. The legs in Legs that Go Go GO! are not lying down, they are not passive.

They actively confront the viewer.

My aim was to create an uncanny, living presence in the legs. I wanted to give an uncanny strength and presence to an often purely sexualised part of the female body.

 

Process Pictures

 

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