Artist Statement: Houses of Fiction
‘Whether domestic spaces are depicted as places of confinement or refuge, the private sphere is an evident preoccupation for many nineteenth-century female writers. Often a reflection of women’s ‘place’ in society, the stories depicted in this series demonstrate the metaphorical and literal significance of space. Borrowing partially from literary criticism, this series attempts to synthesize ideas and images through the process of interpretation and adaptation. In each of the five selected stories conventional notions of womanhood are undermined, inciting conflict and eventually ‘madness’ - this tension is implicit in each of the narratives examined.
The dichotomous representation of women - mad or sane - is crucial to represent in this series. Therefore, each story is presented as a diptych: one image represents the passive, subservient woman, while the other image represents ‘madness’. The first image is literal and based on the emphatic description of space in the individual stories. Alternatively, the representation of the maddening consequence of confinement.
Posts tagged wuthering heights
July 30, 1818: English Author Emily Brontë is Born
Emily Brontë, of the famous Brontë sisters writing trio, was born on this day in 1818 in Yorkshire, England. Because of the harsh living conditions in disease-ridden 19th Century England, the Brontë sisters witnessed the deterioration and death of nearly all of their family members, which deeply impacted their writing. Emily Brontë herself was met by an early death in 1848, leaving behind the legacy of a single novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic work of English literature.
Take a behind-the-scene look at Masterpiece’s film “Wuthering Heights” based on the Emily Brontë novel.