Wednesday, 9 September 2015

Chiharu Shiota Analysis - Second Skin & Seven Dresses




 “Second Skin” (Hoffmann Collection) 2001



“Seven Dresses” (Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken / Germany) 2015



In these installations, Shiota has used a metal cube frame to encase her pieces. “Second Skin” consists of a woman’s dress suspended to the right of the cube by black string. The string has been wound together to fill the frame but the artist has purposely concentrated the amount of string clustered around the dress. This draws attention to this area and makes the dress appear to be giving out a physical energy. As the colour of the “energy” is black, this could symbolise negativity, sadness, the absence of emotion, or death. I believe that the use of the empty dress shows the death of someone. The dress is positions as if lying face down, with both arms hanging down. This could show some sort of haunting or maybe the cause of death. To me it looks as if the dress is drowning in or is being suffocated by the metaphorical energy. I believe this shows the presence of a spirit or this piece of work is a reminder of the passing of someone. I think Shiota has used the frame to encase the dress and string to emphasis the suffocation and claustrophobia of the person that once wore the dress.
I hope to use Chiota’s work to inspire the overall mood of my work. I like the way she portrays energy and feeling physically using string. It physically shows how you feel when you are lonely or missing someone; it feels as if your memories and thoughts have a dark, unclear cloud over them.





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