Silent Stories

Eliana Cetto’s photography and video series Silent Stories is a tableaux expression of a tortured fairytale character. Here, Alice characters have fallen down the rabbit hole, but instead of encountering a wonderland, they are escaping a claustrophobic, antiquated nightmare. In Unwonderland, innocent paper puppets try to flee their two-dimensional lives, and transform into living dolls. Their mannequin appearance and child-like vulnerability create personalities that meld traditional Alice and Snow White with a gothic damsel in distress. The emotional and narrative nature of the series explains the title Silent Stories, conveying preverbal messages of pain, longing, sorrow, love, and death. The transformation from marionette to girl is depicted as frantic, ghostly, and dream-like. The insertion of self-portraiture in the film adds to the dimensionality of the fairytale characters, becoming expressions of the artist’s innermost dialogues. Silent Stories suggests the possibilities of a postindustrial wasteland of obsolescence, while referencing contemporary modernity. Thus, the viewer is guided through an adventurous transformation of a beautiful and horrifying, postmodern voyage.Through the use of selective coloring and layers of texture, the artist is not only able to create an image of tension, similar to influential artists like Joel Peter-Witkin, Robert Park Harrison and Floria Sigismondi, but also creates a barrier from the voyeuristic viewer. Here, the dialectical beauty and damaged appearance of the digital prints and video, simultaneously lure and deflect the gaze from the protagonist, creating a deterrent from access to the fantasy world

Nightmares and Dreamscapes: A Journey to Self Realization

My current body of work concerns painted, large-scale self-portraits. These works are my way of communicating to the world my changing self as seen through my dreams. Due to my age and generation, I am caught in a continuous search for self-knowledge. I wish to explain my feelings through portraits, not a realistic visage, but a portrait of my unconscious. But how do I communicate something impermanent? If I don\u27t know who I am, how do I paint something that resides within me? In these ten paintings, I try to depict my psyche: my dreams and fantasies coming to life, creating a dialogue with how others see me, who I feel I am, and what lies beneath the exterior. With every painting accomplished, I have more of an understanding of my place in the world. The manner in which I depict myself with each painting communicates different mood. They enable me to understand my own personal emotions through these, introspective, dream-like images. !transform myself into something immaterial and unknown, something intangible and unseen. As the series progresses I begin to break away from the dark, oppressive and claustrophobic real world, represented in nightmarish cityscapes and find myself in a peaceful dream, progressing towards a tranquil serenity

Cindy Sherman\u27s Madame de Pompadour (nee Poisson) of 1990

In her portrait of Madame de Pompadour (1990), contemporary photographer Cindy Sherman attempts to reestablish artistic conventions through a feminine aesthetic. The artist dismantles historical French gender constructions by appropriating the materials and designs of eighteenth- century dinner wear, and placing herself costumed as Madame de Pompadour on its face. As I plan to demonstrate, she subverts its primary use as decorative dinner ware, deflects the male gaze, and elevates women from the status of object of desire to subject of intellect

Nightmares and Dreamscapes: A Journey to Self Realization

My current body of work concerns painted, large-scale self-portraits. These works are my way of communicating to the world my changing self as seen through my dreams. Due to my age and generation, I am caught in a continuous search for self-knowledge. I wish to explain my feelings through portraits, not a realistic visage, but a portrait of my unconscious. But how do I communicate something impermanent? If I don\u27t know who I am, how do I paint something that resides within me? In these ten paintings, I try to depict my psyche: my dreams and fantasies coming to life, creating a dialogue with how others see me, who I feel I am, and what lies beneath the exterior. With every painting accomplished, I have more of an understanding of my place in the world. The manner in which I depict myself with each painting communicates different mood. They enable me to understand my own personal emotions through these, introspective, dream-like images. !transform myself into something immaterial and unknown, something intangible and unseen. As the series progresses I begin to break away from the dark, oppressive and claustrophobic real world, represented in nightmarish cityscapes and find myself in a peaceful dream, progressing towards a tranquil serenity

Silent Stories

Eliana Cetto’s photography and video series Silent Stories is a tableaux expression of a tortured fairytale character. Here, Alice characters have fallen down the rabbit hole, but instead of encountering a wonderland, they are escaping a claustrophobic, antiquated nightmare. In Unwonderland, innocent paper puppets try to flee their two-dimensional lives, and transform into living dolls. Their mannequin appearance and child-like vulnerability create personalities that meld traditional Alice and Snow White with a gothic damsel in distress. The emotional and narrative nature of the series explains the title Silent Stories, conveying preverbal messages of pain, longing, sorrow, love, and death. The transformation from marionette to girl is depicted as frantic, ghostly, and dream-like. The insertion of self-portraiture in the film adds to the dimensionality of the fairytale characters, becoming expressions of the artist’s innermost dialogues. Silent Stories suggests the possibilities of a postindustrial wasteland of obsolescence, while referencing contemporary modernity. Thus, the viewer is guided through an adventurous transformation of a beautiful and horrifying, postmodern voyage.Through the use of selective coloring and layers of texture, the artist is not only able to create an image of tension, similar to influential artists like Joel Peter-Witkin, Robert Park Harrison and Floria Sigismondi, but also creates a barrier from the voyeuristic viewer. Here, the dialectical beauty and damaged appearance of the digital prints and video, simultaneously lure and deflect the gaze from the protagonist, creating a deterrent from access to the fantasy world

Marie-Antoinette and the Construction of Royal Feminine Identity in the Portraits of Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun

In an attempt to clear her name, French Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) created her own royal feminine identity through the use of propagandist portraiture. She enlisted the help of portraitist Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Le Brun (1755-1842) to create images that represented her as an intellectual, a revolutionary and a caring mother. The relationship between Vigee-Le Brun and Marie-Antoinette is significant because patrons and portraitists are often male, whereas these portraits are the result of the collaboration of two women. By the use of symbolic objects, settings, and costumes, both women constructed a unique royal feminine identity that continually changed in accordance with historical events. Each image is tailored to promote Marie Antoinette\u27s popularity through eighteenth century notions of public advertising. The commissions were meant to counter Marie-Antoinette\u27s negative reputation and highlight both the private and public roles that she was expected to fulfill. For Marie-Antoinette, creating propaganda paintings that adapted to the changing attitudes of the French people was an important political strategy

Gun-Slingin’ Tarts and Sensitive Cowboys: Johnny Guitar and the Rare, Female Western

Johnny Guitar (1954) is a rare, female Western, based on the story of a small, corrupt Arizona community and a new property owner, Vienna (Joan Crawford). The town is dominated by the two main female characters of Vienna and Emma (Mercedes McCambridge); they call every shot, make every decision, and have men who follow them. The gender performances of both women are examples of coded lesbianism, which is adopted in the film to show their power and success in a man’s world. Their masculine appearances and cold glances at men create on-screen innuendos, referring to their butch identities. The main male characters are, in turn, feminized, creating very sensitive and emotional cowboys, who dance, sing, and abide by their women. Not fully adopting homosexual characteristics, the resolution for the “queered” female characters lies in their ability to simultaneously be heterosexual damsels-in-distress, waiting for an opportunity to be turned back into women by the men who love them. Thus, even though the main characters’ queer characteristics subvert the status quo in the traditional Western, heteronormativity is restored at the film’s conclusion

Cindy Sherman\u27s Madame de Pompadour (nee Poisson) of 1990

In her portrait of Madame de Pompadour (1990), contemporary photographer Cindy Sherman attempts to reestablish artistic conventions through a feminine aesthetic. The artist dismantles historical French gender constructions by appropriating the materials and designs of eighteenth- century dinner wear, and placing herself costumed as Madame de Pompadour on its face. As I plan to demonstrate, she subverts its primary use as decorative dinner ware, deflects the male gaze, and elevates women from the status of object of desire to subject of intellect