COSMETIC MADONNA series 2001, 2002
Cosmetic Madonna
ArtHouse window onto Curve Street, Dublin
22nd November 2001
Immaculate Make-Over
No Name Boutique window, EV+A Limerick
March 2002
Cosmetic Madonna
Pery Square, EV+A Limerick
(EV+A Ci Quo Xhang Performance event)
April 2002
Special Thanks to
Curator Sarah Pierce (ArtHouse), Helena Walsh for photography & assistance
The relentless application
layer upon layer
of transfiguring cosmetics
Duration 3-4 hours in a public street/window
In the performance, I gradually obliterate my own image under successive layers of extreme cosmetics. This is a transformative process: make-up is used as art material, as creative and expressionist matter. I perform an elaboration on the identity of a cultural icon and female Goddess, the BVM (the Blessed Virgin Mary).
I become grotesquely masked by cosmetics but liberated from conventional behaviour and the constraints of socially constructed womanly beauty.
I use the characterisation of iconic Madonna and fertility Goddess figures to add humour and a certain pomp and majesty to the image. I am attracted to the figure of the Goddess as an exemplar and archetypal persona that embodies our highest aspirations as human beings. I also like the playful ironic pagentry in using these characterisations. I had created a 'multi-breasted' Goddess figure in earlier work and reworked this image into The Cosmetic Madonna series.
But, I am also everywoman 'making-up', enacting a daily ritual but a ritual that is elaborated and transgressed. I also transform myself into a 'work of art' painted with succulent colours and textures in the manner of Abstract Expressionism! Cosmetics become high art materials...
ArtHouse window onto Curve Street, Dublin
22nd November 2001
Immaculate Make-Over
No Name Boutique window, EV+A Limerick
March 2002
Cosmetic Madonna
Pery Square, EV+A Limerick
(EV+A Ci Quo Xhang Performance event)
April 2002
Special Thanks to
Curator Sarah Pierce (ArtHouse), Helena Walsh for photography & assistance
The relentless application
layer upon layer
of transfiguring cosmetics
Duration 3-4 hours in a public street/window
In the performance, I gradually obliterate my own image under successive layers of extreme cosmetics. This is a transformative process: make-up is used as art material, as creative and expressionist matter. I perform an elaboration on the identity of a cultural icon and female Goddess, the BVM (the Blessed Virgin Mary).
I become grotesquely masked by cosmetics but liberated from conventional behaviour and the constraints of socially constructed womanly beauty.
I use the characterisation of iconic Madonna and fertility Goddess figures to add humour and a certain pomp and majesty to the image. I am attracted to the figure of the Goddess as an exemplar and archetypal persona that embodies our highest aspirations as human beings. I also like the playful ironic pagentry in using these characterisations. I had created a 'multi-breasted' Goddess figure in earlier work and reworked this image into The Cosmetic Madonna series.
But, I am also everywoman 'making-up', enacting a daily ritual but a ritual that is elaborated and transgressed. I also transform myself into a 'work of art' painted with succulent colours and textures in the manner of Abstract Expressionism! Cosmetics become high art materials...
