Sophia Olivieri, Porcelain, 2023, engraving onto porcelain tiles. Dimensions variable. My artwork Porcelain is made up of fifteen laser engraved bathroom tiles
which depict mise-en-scenes of women within the space of the bathroom,
derived from films spanning across various genres and time periods. The
work investigates the bathroom as a filmic space, often being emblematic
of vulnerability and intervention into one's privacy. I chose to highlight the
various tropes which tend to ruminate within the bathroom such as female objectification and voyeurism, violence against women within the horror
genre and female contemplation. Narratively, the private and intimate
space of the bathroom is employed by filmmakers as an area in which
climax and eruption occurs through confrontation, inspection and exposure.
The tension between 'privacy' and 'intervention' within the space is further
emphasised through the etching of the tiles, which provides a degree of
invisibility until it is manoeuvred by audiences and shifted under the light,
revealing the mise-en-scene's iconography. |