'Whak'emall' by Jemima Wyman
August to December 2006
Whak'emall was conceived as a site-specific work exploiting the prominence and scale of the billboard to play with the idea of 'looking' and 'being looked at'. The character hiding in the peice is drawn from one developed by the artist for a video artwork.
The image emplys strategies used in nature such as camouflage and seductive pattering. Jemima is interested in the ability of patterned fabrics to work as a special effect or digital manipulation (as if it's been Photoshopped) to animate the body in still photography. Fabric operates as prosthesis transforming the body daily through its application as clothing. This photographic work exaggerates this point, inherent in the everyday, so that the fabric becomes the face, body, character and the space.
Jemima Wyman completed a Bachlor of Visual Arts at QUT and received the prestigious Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship in 2005. Jemima is a performance artist who also makes installations, videos, photo collages and paintings that are brilliantly patterend visual representations of the body.
The Whak'emall billboard coincided with her exhibtion No Nonsense, Great Shapes at The Block in 2006.
