Limerick, Ireland
Martina Cleary, The Wind, 2008, 2 photographs, 67 x 72 cm

Martina Cleary

b. 1970, Ireland

My work examines spaces of disappearance and rupture, where the habitual breaks down, giving way to potential for new readings of meaning. An unusual story rescued from the mainstream mass-media flow is often the starting point for a re-enactment of events.

The Wind is part of a series of works called Dark Continent. The complete series includes drawings, digital images and videos. The works explore what I perceive to be borderline states. By this I mean states of awareness or consciousness which disrupt traditions within the symbolic order, leaning more towards an intonation of the abject. By abject, I am referring to the phenomenon as first discussed in the work of Julia Kristeva, but also examined in the writings of Bataille, Douglas, Kraus, Burgin and Mulvey.

The Wind depicts a young woman and her daughter in the back garden of a rural Irish cottage. The woman, occupied by the habitual domestic task of hanging out the laundry, is being swept away skyward by the wind. Her daughter observes from a distance. Like stills from a video, the works suggest a sequence of events unfolding in time, fictional or fantastic in nature despite their claim to photographic authenticity.

(Text: too early for vacation catalogue, 2008)

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