Natura Morta

by Alexa Meade 2009

Live installation: Acrylic paint on found objects, walls, and flesh

(This is actually a photograph of a living person who, like the objects around her, has been painted ON in order to resemble a painting!!!)

Inspired Narrative:

The hotel room begins to devour her every muffled breath before she can even force it from the hollow in her chest. Uneven beats fill that vacant cavity with untiring angst, but her mind is disconnected. Thoughts rising like hot air loom along the musty ceiling where mold clings. She feels the flesh, which binds her in detached hatred, still moist from his body. She watches, as his imprint on the coarse sheets seems to dig deeper into the mattress, though the slammed door failed to carry even the softest breezes into the room with his exit. He was just another and yet she is still the same. It’s tiresome how time comes to reveal the same revelation over and over in new light. She wants to reach over to the lamp and illuminate her feet resting on the dingy carpet but her arms weigh in defiance. She wishes those feet could carry her out into the daylight and stirring air, where she might find something worth living for.

If Saussure were to examine this picture he might base his perception on his theory that, "language is a system of signs that express ideas" (Saussure 851). Similar to a literary work, a picture or piece of art is also a system of signs that express ideas. Saussure might also add that in order to understand what this picture represents, we must also identify what it does not represent, by recognizing the binary oppositions implied by the use of signifiers in the piece. The woman's body language is beyond relaxed and more suggestive of defeat. Sitting in her undergarments, it is clear based on societal standards that we are viewing her in a moment of privacy. The shadows of the furniture seem to indicate that she is sitting near a window, currently rendering the lamp as useless. Her body language and her gaze towards the floor seem to mirror this object. Similarly, the bottle on the table, which is shaped much like that of a wine bottle, is not in it's normal upright position. The signified usually associated with a woman in her bra and underwear is defied in this picture. Instead, she seems to be yielding to the signifiers around her, which are reflective of her current state. The relationship between the woman and the objects around her confirms the semiotic standpoint that the meaning of one sign can only exist in relation other signs. Although the woman is clearly the focus in the image, she means nothing without the daylight cast upon her, the empty wine bottle laying next to her, or her body language in relation to the room around her.

De Saussure, Ferdinand. "Course In General Linguistics" Ed. Vincent Leitch. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Second Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2010. Print.