Untitled. From the suite of 23 plates entitled 'Blue Rapunzel'
Print
2003 (printed)
2003 (printed)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
This image is one of a series in which the artist plays with the fairy story of Rapunzel, a young woman who was shut away in a tower and whose only means of contact with the outside world was through her long hair which she let out of the window like a rope for her lover to climb up and reach her. For Marran 'Rapunzel' suggests a realm which is simultaneously idealised, fantastical, chaotic and quite depressing, in which women are cut off from the wider world through the demands of child- and home- care. The imagery, which suggests a contemporary Japanese aesthetic of the kind found in comic books, toys and video games, combines the abstract with vague evocations of children's toys and domestic objects. The writer Diana Gaston describes Elizabeth Marran's ability to "reveal the potential of a circle or an oval to become something much more fantastic. She assembles circular forms in a regular pattern, only to disrupt them, seemingly through some kind of mathematical formula, setting up slight disruptions or fractiousness among otherwise playful shapes." The reference to 'blue' in the title may reflect the dominance of the colour in the series which, as Gaston also points out, "vacillates between despair and transcendence."
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Title | Untitled. From the suite of 23 plates entitled 'Blue Rapunzel' (assigned by artist) |
Materials and techniques | Digital print |
Brief description | Digital print by Elizabeth Marran from the series 'Blue Rapunzel' 2003 |
Physical description | Brightly coloured hard-edge composition of black-outlined ellipses arranged loosely as floral patterns and possibly rabbits or dishes or window shapes, against a blue and yellow ground. |
Dimensions |
|
Marks and inscriptions | L Marran '03 (Signed and dated in pencil at bottom right of sheet) |
Credit line | Given by the artist |
Summary | This image is one of a series in which the artist plays with the fairy story of Rapunzel, a young woman who was shut away in a tower and whose only means of contact with the outside world was through her long hair which she let out of the window like a rope for her lover to climb up and reach her. For Marran 'Rapunzel' suggests a realm which is simultaneously idealised, fantastical, chaotic and quite depressing, in which women are cut off from the wider world through the demands of child- and home- care. The imagery, which suggests a contemporary Japanese aesthetic of the kind found in comic books, toys and video games, combines the abstract with vague evocations of children's toys and domestic objects. The writer Diana Gaston describes Elizabeth Marran's ability to "reveal the potential of a circle or an oval to become something much more fantastic. She assembles circular forms in a regular pattern, only to disrupt them, seemingly through some kind of mathematical formula, setting up slight disruptions or fractiousness among otherwise playful shapes." The reference to 'blue' in the title may reflect the dominance of the colour in the series which, as Gaston also points out, "vacillates between despair and transcendence." |
Collection | |
Accession number | E.340-2007 |
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Record created | August 3, 2007 |
Record URL |
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