Artists Statement:

"In response to the theme of the exhibition, I have worked with the idea of co-ordinates in space and time, where a historical literary reference becomes the locus of creativity for the work. This “Marriage Portrait” was inspired by Maggie O’Farrell’s novel with the same title as well as Velasquez’s portrayals of many Spanish Infantas. The painting is of Lucrezia di Cosimo de Medici who at the age of 13 was married to the Duke of Ferrara – an expedient and political alliance for the family. Then Lucrezia died of TB at the age of 16, yet many including her parents, thought she had been poisoned. The poet Robert Browning’s poem, “My Last Duchess” was a dramatic monologue of a fictitious imagining of the demise of Lucrezia, and O’Farrell was intrigued by this poem, weaving the drama into her novel. My paper sculpture, influenced by the portrait of Lucrezia (attributed to Agnolo Bronzino) touches on the themes of female agency, loss and politics of marriage as portrayed throughout the ages and has a significant attribution to the American photographer, Joel Peter Witkin and his reworking of “Las Meninas”, by Velasquez. The distinctive red rope or thread is significant of the ties that bind - to a locus or place, familial ties, the thread of life and blood ties. This notion of ties or links to a place is entrenched in our language with “motherland”, “mother tongue”, “place of birth” that ties each individual to a specific co-ordinate. The concept of cellular structures, such as mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to daughter without recombination has allowed for the theory of a matrilineal common ancestor. Scientists are able to use a “molecular clock” to track genetic mutations to a single source known as “Mitochondrial Eve”.  While this “Eve” is not the first woman, she is the common ancestor whose genetic line can be traced back 140,000 to 200,000 years ago to the continent of Africa. (Source: Wikipedia)"