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Interior
Voyage into the Interior
- Extending the Painted Image 1996
Page 2
The artist's body is represented by the immigrant's
chest, sturdy for the journey across the ocean. The public
outside of the trunk is mottled like aging skin and bound
with ropes, hair and roses symbolizing conventional femininity.
Hidden within the messy female spaces of the interior are
the private images of the artist. Within the trunk is a bed,
with photographs and objects that indicate stages in a woman's
life. The rules and grid restrain the young woman; her task
as she grows is to find her way past these restrictions into
a freer space of autonomy and empowerment.
One way to empowerment is through the life of
the mind, represented here the "writing cabinet for a lady"
that contains some of the artist's secrets within its compartments.
The inwardness of the desk is coded by the image of the turtle.
The ocean motif recurs on the piece, in both painting and
objects: the pieces of wood are from an ancient underwater
forest, the sand is from a beach on Jersey, and the china
pieces, fragments of another's domesticity were washed up
on shore after a shipwreck. The objects serve as talismans.
a way of Hérivel learning new spells.
The artist's path of self-discovery leads also to the screen,
behind which the decorous invisible female disrobes without
being seen. The screen represents the artist's life of spirit,
and serves as an altar in this installation. The life of the
spirit here succumbs to the force of nature, as the sides
of the screen show the same spot at both high and low tide.
The cloth left behind shows the traces of her spirited essence;
in place of the elusive body are the spaces in the fabric's
folds.
Antoinette Hérivel's unconventional autobiography
doesn't celebrate the end of a life of accomplishments and
public deeds. Instead, it maps her process of self-exploration
through the realms of memory, creativity and cultural roots.
Dr. Barbara Pezalla Powell
Dr. Powell has researched, written and lectured
widely in the area of women's autobiographical writings in
Saskatchewan and Canada. She is currently Coordinator and
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at the University of
Regina.
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