phoebeleonee

[phoebeleonee]

Artist Reflective Statement

For this project, I chose to impose anti-femme text onto lace using a phototransfer technique, draping them in a studio space against a wall to create an intimate environment where the audience can engage with and read the text closely, yet distorted by the canvas of the lace.

In researching for the project, I initially drew a lot from Frances Goodman's 'The Dream', and how she used the materiality of soft, feminine, traditional wedding fabrics and imposed upon them notions of patriarchy by putting text on them. I also was inspired heavily by lacemakers and lace patterns, particularly Ashley Blalock's 'Now I Lay Me...', in which she explores mortality and life through lacemaking and text. Other inspirations include Jenny Holzer's text-based works, Hiromi Tango's 'The Red Room,' and artists based on Instagram, such as @/a_jilian's beaded American Flag, and @/kill3rg1rl or Sarah Fitzgerald, who created and auctioned lace to raise money for Palestinian families in Gaza. All of these artists are explored more in my portfolio.

As the work progressed, what initially started out as having nothing to do with lace at all quickly became a work based around lace. After conversations in the proposal presentation, I felt more drawn to working with lace because of it's themes of docility, homeliness, femininity, the quaint, the quiet, something not angry. The dichotomy between that and the texts I researched felt so distant and interesting, and so the project changed to revolve around lace. Ashley Blalock's works also aided this change.

The expanded field of print was explored through my use of original printmedia techniques, such as photo transfer and text, but expanded upon in using these techniques on lace. I also feel the radical nature of printmedia had ties to this work as well.

By putting these texts onto the work, I hope to put into the spotlight notions of women that are common and widespread, yet intensely hidden outside of online spheres. As discussed in my presentation, violence against women by their partners, particularly locally in Australia, is becoming a life-threatening issue. These online spheres are not detached from the everyday.

In the future, I want to explore this idea through just lacemaking. While I feel transferring the words onto the lace worked well, creating lace embedded with the texts I researched would be fun and technically interesting. It was also suggested to possibly try and paste up some of the lace in the same way posters are put up, which would be interesting to do over the holidays.

[phoebeleonee]

final presentation pictures for the work, which will remain untitled only because i feel the text speaks for itself.

[phoebeleonee]

Now I Lay Me..., Ashley Blalock, 2010

"Two crochet blankets, each with a prayer, are suspended from the ceiling of the gallery to form a passage. The cream blanket has a child's prayer for bedtime and the black blanket has a passage from a funeral rite that likens death to sleep."

i've held Ashley Blalock as inspiration for a while as well, ever since making 'lace curtains' last year (which i will also put pictures of at the end of this. is it conceited to be inspired by my own work? idk.) she does some really cool stuff with lace, but i particularly enjoy 'now i lay me..' and how it explores mortality through this childish, holy way, purely through the texts written. i would actualy LOVE to use this technique to write out the texts i've researched but purely into the lace itself. that would be so so so cool.

i also have these images saved from a person who used to go by kill3rgirl on instagram. i can no longer find their account :( but i still have these images.

they were for a small initiative called 'lace for gaza', in which kill3rgirl made and auctioned these irish crochet lace pieces to raise money for palestinian families in gaza sometime last year.

in the future, i feel these techniques of using patterns to create lace pieces with text in them could be really cool to explore and use, but i'm not sure how this would relate to print. i'll keep this in mind when making things over the holidays.

small pics of 'lace curtains' from last year.

[phoebeleonee]

The Club: where real people become unreal men, Nic Fern, 2023

A woman looking at men looking at women, Nic Fern, 2023

some stuff i've liked for a while now.

[phoebeleonee]

my diary pages for the final presentation later this week... (plus a little on my elective unit i am doing pls ignore)

i have a bunch more diary stuff in my sketchbook, which i need to photograph and put here.

[phoebeleonee]

lets phototransfer♫

05/06/2025

today was phototransfer hell. in a good way. i was supposed to come in on tuesday to do all the photo transfer stuff, and i did, but many people were using the presses so i didnt want to add to the pile. thursday i had em all to myself. yay.

while printing on the muslin last week, janet mentioned that it could be a good idea to, instead of using black for the text, use a dark maroon/red colour. i immediately did this, i feel like it made a big difference. also i just dont like using black, i'm not sure why i did in the first place.

and what the paper protecting the press looked like after... so cool..

I have a Onenote page of all the text used, as well.

all of which was taken from trp(dot)red, a 'red pill' forum website with a range of different forums on politics, sex, navigating relationships with women, etc. all of these texts were found posted from within the last month. the top ones are from Elliot Rodger's manifesto.

sifting through these websites was a bit draining. there was so much of it that i didn't know what to pick and choose for the work. it's like searching for the needle in the haystack, except the haystack is made out of needles, and you only have one thread and now you're being pricked with all these needles.

nevertheless, it was interesting.

[phoebeleonee]

testing in studio space

27/05/2025

i bought muslin (the salmon and white fabrics) to use for the project. putting it up today, i had a lot of thoughts.

i don't like the look of the patterned fabric. it's very pretty, but if I am going to be using lace as well in the work, i just feel it overcrowds it? lace is already so busy looking. so that fabric won't be used.

my initial plan was to phototransfer onto the muslin, and then after phototransfering onto the lace, i felt like incorporating lace but still using the muslin as the main material for putting the text onto. after putting this up, i wasn't so sure. the text on the lace was more interesting and conceptually made more sense, the whole 'lowkey can't read this' thing. as it turned out, the lace actually stuck to the hanging muslin pretty well, which i think is what i'll do - just have the muslin as a bit of a background and hang the lace on and around it.

after this, i still did some tests with the muslin and phototransfer. it's nice for future reference (and some sneaky lace trim in there too..)

[phoebeleonee]

project proposal...

For this project, I want to impose anti-femme text on soft, draped fabrics using a photo transfer technique to create an environment in a room for the audience to walk around and read.

Materially, I will be focusing on using soft, flowy, cream-coloured fabrics sourced second hand. I will be researching a range of real expressions, particularly from men, that align with radical hatred of women and anti-femme rhetoric. So far, I am particularly drawn to Elliot Rodger’s manifesto (a well-known face in the internet’s ‘manosphere’), Donald Trump’s ‘obscene’ conversation with Billy Bush, and other miscellaneous texts and posts from radical online forums.

I am drawing from a range of different artists, particularly Frances Goodman’s ‘The Dream’, in which she drapes flesh-coloured and traditional wedding fabrics embroidered with sequined text taken from interviews with women on their feelings about marriage. At the bottom of the work, piles of wedding dresses lay. I’m also keeping in mind Jenny Holzer, and the ways she uses text in her works, typically short but conparatively powerful. Other artists on my radar are Instagram user a_jillian, who is currently hand beading an american flag with the words ‘I moved on her like a bitch,’ infamously expressed by Donald Trump in his conversation with Billy Bush, referring to how he ‘moved’ on a married woman. I am also inspired by Hiromi Tango’s ‘The Red Room,’ for how she creates an environment in the room using fabric sculpture.

I am drawing on the expanded field quite gently, creating 3D spaces with printmedia as a bit of a side consideration/something to use to do what I want, without the traditional impositions of print.

Moving forward, I will be sourcing fabrics first and measuring and hemming them so that they fit room 315 the way I want them to. Then, I will be using photo transfer on the fabrics to impose the text. I’ll be in and out of 315 experimenting and tailoring the work to the space.

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after presenting for the project proposal, i didn't get a lot of feedback on the work per se, but the discussions it prompted within the majority femme-presenting class felt reassuring, like it validated the work.

i also got a little bit of feedback on using lace, in that it brings up ideas of domesticity, traditional femininity, almost like the femininity most of these men who speak this way about women enjoy citing as something to come back to. i think the comparison is interesting and i'll keep it in mind.

[phoebeleonee]

jenny holzer's infamous infamous survival. just in general the ways jenny holzer uses text i love.

[phoebeleonee]

etching...

janet took us through how to prepare and put ground on a plate. i took so many notes. this was the beginning of the design, kind of just doing it intuitively i just wanted to test the technique...

the left is the design pulled on its own, and then the right with soft ground which i used some lace to put small flowers and grid texture around her skirt area... turned out lovely.

this was all over the span of many weeks.

[phoebeleonee]

hiromi tango - the red room

creating spaces, environments, ecosystems. everything in tango's red room looks as if it is breathing, as if it has life, and is almost sea-like despite it's colour.

[phoebeleonee]

13/05/2025

tests in 302 last week.

quotes from elliot rodgers' manifesto

[phoebeleonee]

09/04/2025 - thinking about initial stuff. very, very initial. a few strange print-related things (and not so much) to keep close.

https://www.cecilierudolph.com/fish-skin

https://www.francesgoodman.com/the-dream

https://www.juliacondon.com/mobiles

https://sva.edu/events/natural

https://www.instagram.com/a_jillian_/ - work in progress.

https://cathycullis.substack.com/archive?sort=new