Graduate Student, School of the Arts
Thesis Title: Venus in the ‘Looking-glass’: para-classicism and the trans-body in the works of Igor Mitoraj and Marc Quinn
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Dr Gillian Whiteley
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About
I am an art historian and art theorist with a particular focus on looking at concepts of the body, aesthetics, gender and sexuality through the metaphor of the mirror. My research interests include art of the 20th and 21st centuries, specifically performances, sculptures and new media works of art, bringing together different fields of study and concepts, such as gender, performativity, gaze and opticality, amongst others.
My work is concerned with processes of transformations and inversions in the ‘looking-glass’, questioning the legitimacy and limits of the concept of gender in relation to the body and politics and aesthetics of the ‘trans’. My research applies art-theoretical, historical and art-critical methodologies and critically engages with gender and the body as a socio-cultural construct beyond corporeality and the patriarchal logic. I am interested in the recent convergence of contemporary art with diverse critical interests in the body under the overarching themes of transformations, hybridisations and sexuality. I question how opticality challenges the body and what ‘gazes’ there are available while scrutinizing female representations in contemporary works of art, including various contexts and in a broad variety of mediums.
I aim to approach the issue of the body and gender/identity in the works of women artists in both Eastern and Western contexts, where it presents new historical, topographical and sociological stances. My particular focus refers to the body performed in the mirror, which is expected to reflect a beautiful female image imposed by Western psychoanalytical theories centred on phallogocentric stances.
