Orlan
French artist, Orlan, born in 1947 (age 67) interests in art initiated in the 1960s, which is when she began to create artworks. Orlan arose her career with sculptures and painting to express her ideas. From early stages in her art making conventions, Orlan was drawn to questioning the status of the female body in society.
Title: American-Indian self-hybridisation
Year: 2005 152.5 x 124.5 cm Artist: ORLAN Artwork: The first image, above on the left, titled American-Indian self-hybridisation by Orlan is a reinterpretation of the traditional ‘Native-American’ Orlan has exploited the image by featuring her unique elements (hair, forehead implants and general altered appearance) into the artwork to express a recontextualised view of the traditional native American woman. Orlan has undergone nine plastic surgery operations, which she remained awake to change the elements in her face and body into famous historical female figures – the two bumps on her forehead are a representation of Mona Lisa’s protruding brow. Audience: Audiences conceived Orlan’s operations as weird and unflattering, when in fact Orlan has remarkable meaning in the surgeries she has done to her body. In these art performances, known as “Carnal Art,” she converts her body and her face in an endorsement of an exploration of the beauty concept, which is how she articulates art in a contemporary matter to establish her point of view in her artworks. Orlan uses technology to reinforce an idea in her artworks, which has become a current way to portray artist’s ideas in modern art. Artist/Audience: The purpose in Orlan’s artworks is to challenge us (the audience) to draw attention to the concept that female beauty is built by men for the desire of men. She challenges her audience to have an understanding of why someone is considered beautiful and who in society makes these decisions. Through the first artwork she expresses herself in a unique graphical context to connect to the audience through visual dialect. |
Title: African Self-Hybridisation: Year: 2002 421.5 cm x 251.5 cm Artist: ORLAN Artwork: The second artwork (above on the right) ‘African self-hybridisation’ is a black and white artwork of a ‘three-headed’ Orlan. The artwork combines herself and a digitalised representation of a traditional African woman. The artwork includes her defining features to correctly present the artwork as a combination of western and non-western beauty. The artwork expresses the strength of female beauty without the opinion of a male figure. She uses technology to her advantage as an aesthetic resolution to persuade viewers of beauty without the need of male reassurance. World: Orlan has said about her artworks that – “I always tried, in my work, to break barriers between sexes, genders, generations and artistic practices.” She reflects greatly to the past and considers deeply on the female figure as an object through out history and shows in her artworks how she is trying to change and help women think when we wear something or do something if it is for ourselves or for some one else. At age fifteen Orlan changed her name to Orlan, which is when the idea of challenging women’s place in life was introduced. Frames: Orlan expresses her artworks through the Postmodern, Cultural and Structural frames, as I believe in her work she provides her opinion by revealing postmodern ethics in relation to cultural ideas in society. Her structural point of view in her works is shown to the audience through her choice in her art making conventions. Her ‘carnal art’ is symbolic due to the fact she is trying to conform to what is considered beauty yet she is believed to be doing the opposite, which is what she want viewers to look past. |