Post Raphaelite Feminisms

Essay by Iliyana Nedkova

'Inside Out' Stills Gallery, Edinburgh November 2004

Do you sometimes wonder why romanticism and feminism appear to go in and out of style - hot and adorable one season and dismissed as passe, unnecessary and uncool the next? Miranda Whall's work, which seems to embody all that never ceases to appeal about both movements, may provide some clues. Think of Whall's 'Paradise Place' 2003 - a detailed drawing with multiple spirals of nude self portraits amidst a symbolic cluster of birds, animals, farm machinery, caravans and trucks - as a marriage between the late 19th century Pre -Raphaelite Romanticism and the feminism of Helen Chadwick's seminal work - 'Oval Court' from 1980s - two luminaries from different worlds forming a union and changing how we perceive femininity, mythology and romance.

When evoking the Pre - Raphaelite Brotherhood we should remind ourselves that the women of the circle were active, vocal, and artists themselves rather than silent Muses, framed only for their long flowing hair. Some of them, highly skilled in embroidery and other so called 'womens arts' including Jane Morris and Georgiana Burne - Jones worked long hours side by side with the men to create the distinctive Pre - Raphaelite 'look' and question the dominant aesthetics of London's Royal Academy. Over a century later in 'Paradise Place' Whall references lace making techniques and explicit feminist imagery to subvert this romantic tradition of geometric and floral patterns with a deep nostalgia for a mythic world that never was.

On another level, 'Paradise Place' presents a series of vanitas*Still lives echoing Chadwicks 'Oval Court' - a giant round collage in twelve parts where each features the artist' naked body, striking a pose amidst a panoply of animals, plants and drapery. To create the images, Chadwick used a photocopier, laying her body, the dead animals and the other objects directly on the machine. Aided by a computer Whall would identify images, copy and trace them to develop a series of hand drawn scenarios. Each scenario is then repeated, rotated and manipulated digitally to form, as Whall puts it a "wilderness of spiralling and interweaving orgies, held with in the confines of the lace pattern".

Dancing with the beasts of the earth, sea and sky, as well as testing her own fecundity, seems to be at the heart of Whall's digital short S.C.A..T Test, 2004 . The semi - scientific, medical reference from the title is extended in the opening sequence subtitle. The results of the test read 'Tacky/opaque/2/crumbly' while a young woman, the artist herself, in a negligee T shirt and knickers is absorbed in a fertility ritual of sorts. Examining her ovulation fluids, she is paddling in a pond on top of a giant white lily while perhaps rubbing shoulders with the mythical toad soon to turn to prince charming. The white lilies were the first flowers to symbolise Virgin Mary's purity, a tradition still vigorous with the Pre- Raphaelites over 500 years later. Whall's however is an adult fairytale that debunks the rarified air around the frog prince and hops into the 21st century where women are worried about their ability to conceive as much as getting entangled in a romantic magic.

The short film is set in a 'bubble' of a screen, almost as an afterthought, combining subdued colours, live action and gentle, hand drawn digital animation. It seamlessly culminates into Whall's latest photographic series 'Peak Days', 2004 where the artist sets on an uncompromising and undignified journey to conception. Four idylic and inherently fertile landscapes- the meadow, the forest, the cornfield and the river - are said to induce the right conditions for motherhood while the artist tries to literally 'implant' herself in this mise - en - scene through a series of performances. Inverting the landscapes Whall is attempting to humourously convey that she is "neither stuck nor falling but left awkwardly dangling". Tossing our feminine prides and prejudices up and down the highway of Romanticism is what Whall's work seems to be dedicated to without a touch of seasonal shift.

Iliyana Nedkova 2004

Vanitas (Lat Vanity) refers to a type of still life consisting of a collection of objects that symbolise the brevity of human life and the transience of earthly pleasures and acheivements particuarly popular in the 16 th - 17th century Netherlands.

Published by Stills, 2004 ISBN 0 906458 34 X