francesca woodman
Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-80
There is a door. Its placed at a seemingly impossible angle in a bare, dilapidated room. The edges of the door in the bottom right corner are blurred as if the door is out of focus, or else in motion. Beneath the impossibly angled door is a body, apparently naked, although you cannot see the top half since it is hidden, just the outline of buttocks and the L-shaped highlight of legs leading to another blurred edge: a foot, again in motion. This is a self-portrait of sorts. It is Francesca Woodman in the picture, as it so often is in these early series of photographs. Placing herself into the frame but then obscuring or hiding from the viewer. Choosing to expose her self and (herself) only when she deems it required by the image she is trying to create. You can't tell if she's been like that for hours or only seconds.
There are lots of narratives that people have written about Woodman and imposed on Woodman. As anyone does with an artist who puts themselves into their art. Especially a female artist, especially a young female artist who died in her 20s. There's no doubt that there are stories to be found in Woodman's art, but standing in front of her photographs, as I did last week at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, my mind goes blessedly blank. Rather than impose, I simply want to absorb. To take in whatever it was Woodman was putting out into the world. She chose to make these photographs because photography was the only way to articulate what she wanted to say. I don't want to ruin that with my words. Her work is surreal, surprising, funny, irreverent, challenging. It's unsettling the way that door sits above her, offers her shelter while also putting her into a position of precarity. There is a sense of mystery, of unknowability in her work that, rather than push against and uncover, I want to dwell in. Looking at Woodman's work reminds me that I don't always need to know everything about a person, that there are many private, exposing parts of ourselves that can remind hidden while we choose to reveal others. That the self is so often unknown even to us and that nevertheless that moments can be captured and made into something real.
You can read more about Francesca Woodman's art here and here
If you have a tiny narrative to share please get in touch at thetinynarrative@gmail.com