Good, Bad, Ugly, Death
Concept
The concept for this piece arose from my own experiences and healing from domestic violence. I initially wanted to create 4 transparent glass or acrylic panels telling the story of an abusive relationship. Sadly in development this proved to be too costly and difficult to execute.
I adapted the idea into 4 wood framed panels covered in paper.
I approached women who have been or are still in domestic violence relationships for phrasing and wording their abusers use, from the subtle, to threats. I wanted wording to generate a spark in someone who is possibly an abuser and for them to recognise some of the things they may say or actions they take.
Good
The 'Good' panel depicts the beginning of a relationship, this relationship moves very quickly as abusive relationships tend to, with love bombing, gifts, overwhelming expressions of love. this follows into a very fast courtship, with the piece depicting the cracks showing with apology texts, but ends in an engagement. I included smaller text showing phrasing like 'I have never hit a woman' , which could be an excuse for actions, a lie, or a demonstration of reassurance. I deliberately left this ambiguous, as these phrases and statements can be, to victims of DV, it demonstrates the start of gas lighting.
I used paper cutting to demonstrate the fragility of abusive relationships. I wanted each panel to be framed with paper roses which changed between each panel.
I used phrases which later can have their context and meaning changed through the use of font.
I have also used Quilling, the art of paper curling, which is more associated with arts and crafts than large art pieces, to reflect the beauty of paper and its strength. The Love bombing texts are take from real examples of the technique abusers use.
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Bad
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The 'bad' panel, shows the narrative of a marriage, having a home and child, however the language used, phrasing, can be taken in one of two ways. It also mirrors some of the phrases and wording from the 'Good' panel but by changing the font, it creates new meaning. It follows the thoughts of a perpetrator, how he would like to hurt his partner. The papercutting changes too, the print includes bruise patterns to depict the physical violence being part of the relationship.
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Ugly
The 'Ugly' panel is the most chaotic, the papercutting contains my own court documents from my own experiences of the court system for both non molestation orders and contact agreements for the children involved. It contains documents and emails sent by my perpetrator regarding using my mental health as a weapon and the gas-lighting used to confuses, belittle and control. It depicts an escalation and repetition in the aggressive and violent language used. It deliberate is meant to feel overwhelming, messy and they viewer is meant to feel they dont want to look or read it. I included a finger print in quilling using the words provided by victims themselves, i did no amend the spelling or grammer.
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Death
I wanted to keep the 'Death' panel very simple and self explanatory, but still having beauty and strength. I used quilling to create the knife and handcuff pieces, again being ambiguous about the story telling. The wings were created by hand with over 400 individual handcut feathers, with the death do us part phrasing having a change of context again.
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Research images
Further pieces in the collection
Part of my drawing project, meant using my self negotiated project as inspiration.
Drawing from the Death panel of the piece, i used the angel wing as a basis for these two pieces, the idea being, broken wings of those who have been in domestic violence relationships. I used Quilling to expand on this theme.
Diorama
To expand on the installation piece, I researched the nutshell dioramas (see below) and created my own based on the narrative in the Good, Bad, Ugly and Death. I researched crime scenes, body lividity defensive wounds, and blood splatter to give the scene a realism and to create a picture of how it ended.
Artists Research
Frances Glessner Lee
Frances Glessner Lee was born in 1878 to John Jacob Glessner and Frances M. Glessner in Chicago, Illinois. She and her brother, George, in fashionable Prairie Street in Chicago. Born into affluence, Frances was expected to learn embroidery, and domestic arts. She wanted to learn law or medicine but her parents refused to allow it.
She married attorney Blewett Lee, when she was nineteen. She had three children, but ended in a long separation and eventual divorce in 1914. She never remarried.
As a child she was fascinated with miniatures. she began in interest in crime at 44, She became intrigued by the mysteries told by her brother’s good friend, George Burgess Magrath, a fellow student at Harvard and eventual medical examiner in Boston. She learned of the challenges of investigating violent crime deaths. she became interested in how crime can be investigated by looking into the detail. She constructed detailed crime scene diorama's
To create her miniature crime scenes, she blended the details of several true stories, embellishing facts here and changing the details there. She researched her crimes using newspaper reports and interviews with policemen and morgue workers.
On a scale of one inch to one foot, she presented real-life suicides as accidental deaths, accidents as murder and murder as potential suicides.
The point was not to solve the crime in the model, but to observe and notice important details and potential evidence—facts that could affect the investigation.
She was the first female police captain of New Hampshire state police and the first woman to be invited into the International Association for Chiefs of Police. Frances Glessner Lee died in 1962
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