Page 78 - A Sense of Place

Dr Penelope WICKSON
Staff
Coup de Foudre, 2018 Photographic print, 29cm x 42 cm
Moving on from earlier explorations of the tactile and symbolic qualities of flowers in relation to medical procedures and issues surrounding consensual relationships,‘Coup de Foudre’ plays upon the Anglophone literary tradition of using French idioms to parody social mores and conventions. Continuing to draw on the rich codified language of flowers that has enabled romantic relationships to flourish since the Middle Ages, its florid sense of excess also recalls the decadence of the art and literature of the fin-de-siècle.The blurred forms of the peony combined with the ambiguity of the title work together in order to evoke a sensory and corporeal response designed to mirror the bio-chemical reactions that take place within the body during attraction. Inspired by French Feminist theory and the ecriture feminine discussed by Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigary, the image is a clarion call to the power of the emotions and the senses as they erupt through language.At a moment in which the spectre of Fascism with its focus on disciplinary regimes and the regulation of the body looms, ‘Coup de Foudre’ is a celebration of the irrational intoxicating power of lust – an experience that can never be fully put into words but is entirely dependent on the socially entangled bodily and lexical discourse of seduction.
pwickson@stmaryscalne.org
76 A SENSE OF PLACE