jane fonda, MFA Show 2011

Jane Fonda is a work created for my final show of the MFA. Each video is displayed in a 5 1/2 ft high plinth, all the same, in a white space, placed in a semi-circle facing inwards. The videos on each screen are of the same woman, filmed on the same day, from slightly different angles. The woman has been asked to smile in to the camera for as long as she can and to repeat his act for as long as she can. The result is an endless display of smiling women, struggling to keep up the pretence of happiness and ultimately failing. This work is a response to advertising and the creation of images of women in situations that are unrealistic and how repetition of ones image raises questions of ones “true identity or image” . “It’s about the gap between what happens when you want to but you can’t maintain the image anymore;all the gaps are there, between the real and the ideal and the stages in between.” (Alastair MacLennan speaking on the work in the article on Art, Live & Videotape, Printed Project, Issue 15, Visual Artists Ireland)