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The Shadow of my being

I have a beautiful body. Big tits, wide hips, firm ass. I make men weep at my feet. Once I
went out in a sexy g-string and a see-through dress. A procession of men followed me. I
then went into a garage and fucked them all.
Caption under picture: Clause XXX, 2008 !hotograph of coal and pencil lead drawing on
wall, 80"#0cm
!reamble on shadows
$% do lo&e !lato but wouldn't go so far as to e&o(ue the )yth of the Ca&e, where shadows
show lies, dilacerating the real into either illusion or the imaginary, apparently*+
%n shadows lies the root of painting according to myths and factualities, a ,ind of
metaphor that once ser&ed - and still does - the purpose of multiple self-identification and
self-referencing %n order to ma,e up for the definiti&e essence of the lo&ed one $ta,e !liny,
the .lder, in Natural History) one would trace their outline thus fi"ing his morphology
through drawing Such a body circumscription, one that brought it to the present, fades
away in its own &anishing, would rather ac(uire a fulfillment, thus going beyond the
condition of the silhouette

Shadow is simultaneously what opposes light, the image of things themsel&es, unreal
beings, fugiti&es and/or mutants %n some cultures it was forbidden to children to play with
shadows as it meant to disrespect the holy 0e who sold his soul to the de&il would lose
his shadow * for he would thus cease to belong to himself, to e"ist as spiritual being, his
soul lost, absent

There is no flesh if there is no shadow Shadow and flesh are not able to dissociate in
humans The shadow is so to spea, li,e a second nature to all beings Shadow legitimates
the flesh one would say * with irony and pertinent to the implicit world contained in
1achel 2orman's wor, The shadow may return and be reunited, somewhere beyond time,
in a greater shadow that is the aggregated definition of a sub3ecti&e time, one lined with
comple" enacting between nature and the edification of society
4ct around the face
The whole e"hibition is based on the self-identity that un&eils itself albeit partially into self-
portraits The self-portrait is a recurring theme in many artist's wor,s, always pri&ileging the
face, the figure *
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Traditionally, it is a way of getting to ,now oneself, howe&er, in other cases in face of the
compulsi&e figuration of the self, it ser&es deconstructi&e purposes that aim for
reunification of the self or that long for emergency, thus allowing the ambiguity of the self
to linger on

The &ideo presented underlines the $transmutable+ features of the face, presenting it in a
frontal fashion and focusing on the conse(uence of the artist's identity between the ages
of 5 and 50 %t is a singular file of herself, premonitory and subse(uently deliberate There,
the passport-si6ed photographs ser&ing the purpose of legal identification for a myriad of
legal documents one may ha&e Through the manipulated succession of different face
images the audience allows its ga6e to wander in her ga6e, side by side with a person who
un&eils herself in her mysteries for all that is ,nown of her is the physical appearance The
attention splits itself into unsha,able eyes, almost constant albeit fi"ed, despite the life
charge aggregated by the anatomy and psychophysiology and by mista,ing sounds that
the artist herself celebrates
The self-portrait is attached to the body and to the soul* as one would say li,e flesh and
bones7 8o shadow is allowed in this case for there is only the effecti&e and peremptory
e"istence

%n 95:;, in the De Corpus humani fabrica, <esalius determined the implicit distinction
between man and his body Since then man has become the source of a dualism that saw
the lonely7 body in a ,ind of indifference to which man lent his own face

%n =escartes, the body had to be tamed, repressed, domesticated and subordinated to the soul
$1ational )oral+ The body ac(uired a derogatory &alue, despite being incontestable factor of
indi&iduality =escartes prolonged e&en more so the dualism started in <esalius, designating
men to recogni6able ambiguity, despite demarcating its indi&iduality
The epistemological, social and ideological schisms ha&e ser&ed the main esthetics
principles as well as 4rt, especially during the beginning of the X%X century, gi&ing way
to the liberation of the body and granting it pri&ilege and primacy
%n the image of the other body details and characteristics are pro3ected, those that ha&e
long concocted this figure, those that it should possess to correspond to the $other+
&isual/mental $internal+ image 4n identical procedure applies to the images that the
artist domesticates of his/herself 4s well as the &ery image that he/she assumes,
imagines, transfigurates, transforms %n this e"ploratory conte"t of the intimate and the
pri&ate, by means of e"ternali6ation, images of self-portraits come about > when they are
considered in conformity $or not+ with the portraits capti&ated or reali6ed by someone
else ?e it photography, drawing, or painting $or any other complementary or isolated
procedure+ > the $self+ portrait gi&es off internal con&ictions of the body @n the one
hand, it refers to rational character definitions, added to psycho-affecti&e as well as
social and ideological re&eries @n the other hand still it might reflect $di&ergent and/or
con&ergent+ elements that the artist unconsciously elaborates of the self7 confronting,
battling authenticity $or fantasy+ of his/herself to him/herself, not necessarily to the ones
who watch him/her
Since the beginning of her artistic endea&ours the artist has e"perimented as body in the
arts The body has been the &ery first mode of artistic communication un&eiling and
presenting itself to others $only to return to itself+ always between her and the public: a
figure, a wor,ing body $conceptual and physical+, creating poses and gestures to fully
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contest the e"istence and witness the lushness of the impossible > a ,ind of =ionysian
ritual that is successi&ely reenacted The self-portraits are fictional, simulacra $drawing on
?audrillard Auneberger or ?oltans,i et al+
=ecisi&e act of the self $re+united with the other
!ersonality, more than identity, patent in the self-portraits, e"presses itself by that which:
- cannot be gi&en by others $shadow that belongs to the self or to the particulari6ed and
singled out face+B
- all of us needs to set free in oursel&es $shadow as the into"icating essence of reality or
face that affronts the world+
The ideali6ed/transfigurated body lies between the real e"istence and the &irtual world, the
personal body that is concei&ed, that is rationali6ed by the profound impregnation of
desire To the definition of the ideal body, three orders of meaning are pertinent: ideal
body meaning desired body, perfect, model, 4bsolute body > whole and good and
beautiful $in a platonic perspecti&e+ > means apparent, fragile, precarious: perhaps only
shadow, apparition
%n order to ma,e clear the corporeal ideali6ation, the primordial mode, refers to ability of
portraying the image of the artist in him/herself, present in the plastic wor,, as well as in
the multiple fictional emancipations $of pseudo-autobiographical characters+ > patent in
poetry and in literature @n the other hand, the ideali6ed body is also found embedded in
hoped for masculine images, in spiritual or physical models, brought by the creation that
the artist e"hibits, be it at pictorial le&el, photographic or on &ideo
The identity ambiguity becomes e"tremely peculiar once it e"pands into gender di&isions,
in the masculine and the feminine
The initial androgynous is an anthropomorphic figuration of the cosmic egg 1esiding
since the early times, in the cosmogony as much as in the last menacing face, in
scatology %n the alpha and in the omega of the world and the self, the wholesome figure,
e"pressing the se"ual and fundamental unity where opposites coalesce by means of
conciliation, foreseeing the ultimate reintegration This unifying mysti(ue, sa&ed by
humanity, means $personifies+ the duality of the world and appearances $falsifying,
according to mythologies and beliefs+ The primordial rupture that found its irre&ersible
echo in the Myth of the Fall is li,e fire and water, earth and air, the feminine and the
masculine* in a poetic conception that draws us near to ?achelard and Cung The rupture
might generate the Kaos if it wasn't for the complicity of the se"es, inhabiting desires and
nightmares One produces two says the Tao, and it is thus that the primordial 4dam, not
the male but the androgynous, con&erts into 4dam and .&e
%n Dree, )ythology and, conse(uently, in 1oman myths, many of the figurations are
androgynous Se&eral are the legends that un&eil e"plicit episodes where gender
differences are subsumed, becoming the $ultimate+ identity in its archetypical plenitude %n
some different geographies, its territories and times, the bi-se"ual di&ision in fa&our of the
unity has enriched itself drawing on a iconography corresponding to the current esthetic
models > in term of anthropological-symbolic and teleological term perhaps %n the
Aestern history of 4rt and Culture the androgynous condition, bise"uality, gender bi-
&alence ha&e always ta,en on intentionality and e"ternali6ed themsel&es $sublimating
themsel&es+ &ia pictorial, sculptural or poetic products and conceptuali6ations, in e&ery
case
The longest of <irginia Aoolf's boo,s, @rlando7 $9E28+ celebrates the e"istence of both
genders in one same being ma,ing the primordial, almost e"clusi&e, assumption of one or
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the other at the same time that this sort of reincarnation crossed historical moments of
western ci&ili6ation The characters 3ump from one se" to the other in face of ritual
situations that the ?ritish writer placed within emblematic and esthetically cultural periods
She adopted a rather fantastic style inducing the reader's imagination to wander in &isuals,
something that in 9EE2 would be immortali6ed in a motion picture, directed by Sally !otter
The drawings initiated for the 2008 =raughtsman contract7 $O Contrato do Desenhista+
e"hibition gained more and more ground, in&ading unsuspecting walls and in them
breeding asserti&eness and pleasureB to these the ludic and parado"ical statements are
added %t is the return to the origins of creation in distinct conceptions, where it is e&ident
and where the connection between the origin of drawing and painting is once again clear
The shadows gain since the 1enaissance $enhanced+ &olumetric e"cellence and perspecti&e
achie&ed through fading effects gi&ing illusionary effects of cinematographic &alence The
woman $re+gains the will, the dominance and the power $paraphrasing 8iet6sche+,
incorporating the phallus, unifying her breasts in the uniform shadow that pro3ects itself
onto a theatre of identities and parado"ical and ironical e"istences
%n 1achel 2orman's wor, the shadow and the silhouette ser&e e(ui&ocal substances of
transmutation and se"ual ambiguity, within both realistic as well as dreamli,e settings
Aithin the shadows of her being they lie camouflaged by duplicity, perhaps e&en triads %n
other words, by incorporating the penis to the body of typically feminine shapes there is a
correspondence of drawn beha&iors that mo&e from side to side > in an analogy tot he
se"ual act itself, between penetration and the penetrated being and &ice-&ersa Thus, a third
se"uality arises, and a fourth and so on, in the li,es of the assumptions defined by Aoolf in
Orlando
%f the polychromatic rhetoric dominated the writing of Aoolf in the 20s, it can be said that in
the drawings, photographs and &ideos made by 1achel 2orman, the human picture, ie the
self$portrait+ almost always comes to life in a bi-chromatic narrati&e, one that has its
synthesis, its androgynous nature and its completeness in the shadows

)aria de FGtima Hambert
Lisbon/Porto, October 2009