TERRAINS OF MY BODY (In Various States of Anonymity)

Clara Jeanne Reed, Terrains of My Body (In Various States of Anonymity), multimedia, 2020-2022

I made each of these works over the past two years during intensely self reflective periods of my life, where I was questioning my own reality and the body I was trapped in.  It has always felt as though there is a distinct disconnect between my body and mind, as if both are at war with each other trying to reach an equilibrium.  So this project is a result of the tools that help me make sense of that; reading, writing, creating.  I read a lot of random things and saw connections within them, the parallels between Margaret Atwood and Homer, Patti Smith and Kant, Virginia Woolf and Aeschylus.  I think forcing narratives from the past to link with those of the present, was a therapeutic attempt to soothe my own disconnections.  

There was no rhyme or reason to these photos in the beginning, it was merely an impulsive ritual that felt necessary.  It slowly turned into an obsessive and philosophical inquiry to an absence of selfhood.  It is a repetitive, incessant documentation of the body inspired by feminist art of the seventies and interwoven with different historical mythologies.  It’s chaotic and overwhelming, a little dark at times, but hopefully reads like a meditative prayer.  All of the images within this series are self portraits but with no identifying markers, in an attempt to visualize this notion of anonymity, and how it is both a refuge and a warzone.

1. Inquiry of the Body, Part II. 2021

2. Me and My Selves. 2022

3. Suffocating Minds. 2021

4. An Odyssey. 2022

5. In the Origin of My Own Making. 2022

6. Inquiry of the Body, Part I. 2020

7. Prothesis. 2022.

8. On the Cyclical Nature of Things. 2021

9. Putting Myself to Bed. 2022

Inquiry of the Body Part II, digital photographs, 2021. 

Me and My Selves, Polaroid 600 film, acrylic paint, black and red ink, 2022. 

Suffocating Minds, digital photographs, 2021. 

An Odyssey, digital photographs glued on canvas, 2021. 

In the Origin of My Own Making, digital photographs on cardboard, acrylic paint, 2022. 

Inquiry of the Body Part I, digital photographs, 2020. 

Prothesis, 35mm analogue film, labels, red and black ink, 2022.

On the Cyclical Nature of Things, Polaroid 600 film, labels, black ink, 2021. 

Putting Myself to Bed, digital photographs, acrylic paint, black ink, 2022.  

Using Format