Virgin Shroud Artist Transcript
The piece is called Virgin Shroud and I made it in 1993, and it was part of a series called The Udder Series which originated when I found a sieve made out of an udder in Norway which was a functional object that had fantastic surreal implications. I had never considered the udder, the use of an udder, in any other way than just as a milk giving thing and I found it fascinating. And I returned to Ireland and sourced cow skins including the udder and started making this series, called The Udder Series. So, I made the structure actually out of an old wheelie clothes rack and I wanted to locate the udder where the head is implied, so the teats of the udder are now positioned on the head as opposed to between the legs. And the silk lining actually comes from the wedding train of my grandmother, who got married in 1914 in London, and she gave me the silk when I was about 14 and said “go and make a blouse from this” and I kept it in my studio for years, and combined the train with the skin. I was conscious that… the kind of brutality of the skin that I stitched together when it was torn, and the slightly old cow that has a lot of tears and rips… that I wanted to compensate for that kind of brutality in a way with the beauty of silk, which also tied in with this notion that there is some figurative entity under this shroud. Her head is made of plaster - but it doesn’t really matter what she is made of - and she is kind of shrouded from the front so there is no anatomy, there is no human anatomy, really. The titling of Virgin and Shroud - the shrouding of the dead cow with the kind of virginity of the bridal veil - that is the kind of notion around the title. I will never say how people are going to react to my work at all and I learned my lesson very early on that I don’t ever presume. But I am very interested in multiple interpretation and I know that I am orchestrating people in terms of titling. The facelessness of it too, the fact that the back is turned is kind of important, that it’s not clearly…you know when I was in my studio I did have a statue of the Virgin Mary and I was thinking very literally in the beginning… And at one point I had the skin draped over the Virgin Mary but that was too… It was too direct. She is more ambiguous and she is big enough to be powerful I think.
Reflection
The ambiguous nature of this work allows the viewer to make their own analysis of the pieces meaning. This openness is mostly achieved through the questions the work raises about virginity and innocents, through the materials the artist has employed a notion of shy or awkwardness materialises. The sculpture has taken a sentimental item in the form of her grandmothers wedding dress and allowed it to metamorphosed into the feelings she may have had before her wedding day. The artist alludes to orchestrating how people should be viewing this work through the title she has given it. That in turn suggests to me that there is some form of exchange happening between the objects, a dialogue of sacrifice and resurrection that creates the backbone of a narrative. Throughout my own work I am looking at the balance between these things, and endeavouring to find my place within its order.
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