I went to Cardiff Museum to look for examples of how older women are represented in our museums.  As I expected there wasn’t much choice, most of the women on the walls were young and frequently naked. I finally chose the painting Tiresias Foretells the Future to Odysseus (1800) by Henry Fuseli because it included Odysseus’s mother Anticleia. On the Museum’s website she is described as ‘the shadow of Odysseus’s mother’ who is found unexpectedly in Hades when Odysseus went there to find Tiresias and ask him to reveal the future.

 

Anticleia is depicted as a grey, wraithlike woman wilting between two vigorous men, her son Odysseus and the blind seer Tiresias.  Tiresias is also a ghost, but he is not painted like she is, he stands out in silhouette, he is bold and important, and he gets a mention in the title.  Anticleia was a perfect representative of the overlooked and invisible older woman, a shadowy ghost whose very name means ‘without fame’. She is not a separate individual as each of the men is; she is part of a spiral of pale ghosts in the background of the painting, more ground than figure. The narrative import is contained within and between the two men who look at each other, not at her; Anticleia is part of the background of both the story, and the painting.

 

Fuseli’s painting reflects her lack of importance in Homer’s epic poem, she is a poetic device, brought in to move the plot along and let Odysseus know what is going on at home.  In order to place her in Hades Homer has her dying of a broken heart (unlikely in my opinion) because she misses her son so much. Odysseus doesn’t pay her attention beyond what is reasonably proper, being more interested in his own epic future.

 

I had found a perfect subject to illustrate the way older women can be depicted and/or ignored.  I am currently undertaking research about the representation of older women.  It is a practice based PhD which means that the art I make forms the major part of the visual research and thinking, with a supporting paper which documents my reading and explains my argument and process. Anticleia has become my mascot, or symbol, and most of the work I have made in the past year has been about her.

 

I began with drawings from the painting, mostly without looking at the paper I was drawing on, but still closely observing photographs of the original to see how Fuseli has drawn and composed his image.  I am also drawing other, more imaginary works, thinking about her but not looking at anything in particular.  This process is close to the automatic drawing of the Surrealists, but I think of it as semi-automatic, as I do not try to follow all their rules.  One of my aims is to reveal my subconscious thoughts, as the Surrealists tried to do, and sometimes I come close to working in a kind of trance, so that I am always surprised when I finally look at the paper to see what I have done.  The art school I attended in Australia provided life models every day in the studio, and I used to love life drawing, so that it can come almost automatically to me although I am a bit rusty.  I enjoy the freedom and distortion that comes from not looking and allowing my thoughts to wander.  I am trying to work through my body, and allow my hand to think for me, to think through my skin.

 

The main body of work is sculptural, both more formal and more abstract than most of my drawings. I was thinking very much of the composition and shapes in the painting, and how to transfer them to 3D. I have used found materials that bring their own meanings. For Anticleia I think of the spiral shape of the body of unknown ghosts that swirl about her and contain her.  This spiral gives Fuseli’s painting most of its energy, even though the rigid and dramatic shapes of the two male protagonists capture our attention.  I have made a wooden group of the two men, with spidery geometric angles, and Anticleia has been reduced or elevated to vigorous calligraphic curves and folds, to represent her transformation into pure energy, as she transcends and breaks through her proscriptive limitations.

 

My imaginary collaboration with Fuseli is primarily about trying to respond to his artwork, but he is now in my consciousness, like an imaginary friend. I am working against what the painting portrays in protest at what I recognize as negative and patronizing attitudes to older women. However, I often encounter areas of ambiguity in the work, and it is hard to untangle where these come from: the painting or me.  I don’t want to untangle this ambiguity, but retain it, because the energy or vibration of meaning and form between my work and the painting feels dynamic and motivates me to continue.