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LAUREN REA
Ian Brady: Burnt Portrait
Ian Brady: Paper Ashes
The Ian Brady Project
Attempt 1
Attempt 2
Attempt 3
This piece dealt with Experimenting with the idea that eyes are the windows to the soul; fire has been used to burn the image and destroy the gaze that intimidates me; fire also holds religious symbolism of damnation and hell, and gave a haunting and vivid sense of all-encompassing evil. However, after some experimental swatches, I found that it was difficult to control the rate at which fire burns, despite creating rips in the paper in an attempt to control it. My intention was to undermine Brady's stare by defacing it, particularly as this photograph is synonymous with the horrific Murders that haunt England as one of the most monstrous serial killers in history, with Brady himself stating "I'm as big as Jack the ripper."
Ian Brady, along with his accomplice, Myra Hindley, was convicted of the Moors Murders that took place between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Greater Manchester. The Moors Murder victims were five children aged between 10 and 17—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans—Three of which who have been discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor. To this day, the events that took place in the run up to his arrest left a profound wound on the English psyche. Our brief was to select an image that held significance to us; I chose Ian Brady's original
My first intentions were to hole punch a portrait of Brady, however, the off-cuts that I collected from this experiment became a much more powerful use of materials, continuing with the theme of destroying the face in order to seize control of the power in relation to the image. The title of "Paper Ashes" also connotes ideas of fire, suggesting themes of death and cremation. I collected the entirety of an A3 print-out of Ian Brady
In many ways, I didn't chose this image for the fact that it made me uncomfortable... From an early age, my mother had embedded a deep sense of fear in the outside world and what harm it may do to me, particularly as a child and then as a woman. Men were of particular fear as , in some ways, they could do more damage than women due to the fact that they are physically stronger - and statistically in terms of rape. As a female artist, I wanted to claim myself back from this fear; in reflection, if i had chosen myra Hindly, my intentions could have been very different with an intention to distort the face, rather than to destroy the image as if had done with Brady. For a time, I explored placing the eyes of hindly or Kieth Bennet, however, this created a presence , where I wanted there to be a void.
mugshot because of "The Gaze" - of how his eternally unflinching stare makes me uncomfortable - particularly as you couldn't tell is true psychopathic nature. In some ways, I want to use this project to undermine my fear - using four different techniques or mediums...
Crit Session:
My group crit session was very successful in terms of giving ideas to progress on. Probably the biggest criticism was that I needed to work bigger than A3, which whilst creating an approximate 1:1 scale with the viewer, it did not create a sense of the monumental to develop an element of intimidation. They also suggested that i go back to the start and combine the two experiments of burning the eyes and placing a significant person, such as Myra Hindly or one of his victims. Another suggestion was that I place a mirror behind the eyes, or even to suspend the image, engaging the image - rather than just having the viewer observe it for its shock value. I presented this piece as an A1 image to create a sense of scale and intimidation, intending to add mirrors as the most effective, taking particular inspiration from the famous quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you".
Kieth Bennet Myra Hindly
A1: Final Piece
a Glass Jar, much like an urn of ashes in hopes of belittling him, to reduce him to nothing but an unrecognizable form . With this intention in mind, the smallness of this scale also lends to the undermining of my own discomfort when eing confronted with this image.
Crit Session:
This piece went through perhaps the most dramatic development, using the waste product instead of hole punching the portrait and placing it into a jar. As this was a rather conceptual piece, it was also suggested that I add the symbolism of a blue ribbon, meant to be connotative of childhood innocence in contrast to the dark undertones of what happened to Brady's victims. It was also suggested that I break the jar to create a sense of dread and a foreboding sense of danger. It was suggested that I splay the paper over a large area to create a loss of control. However, after some reflection, I decided that creating a space to which the "ashes" were contained would be more visually thought-provoking. The presentation of the piece was also thoughtful in the way it was placed on the floor, as if unnoticed.
Ian Brady: A Children's Drawing
Final Piece
Watercolour Pencil
Acrylic Paint
Watercolour Crayon
Watercolour Crayon
Perminant Marker
These experiments display drawing over the image to distort the face to give it a rough, child-like effect - holding significance in that his victims were children. This intervention varied in different ways, distorting the face to make brady seem like a monster. The use of no colour links heavily to being synonymous with evil, luring people in with the voidlessness that will lure the viwer in.
Crit Session:
This piece was overly well received at the crit session as it succeeded in drawing in the viewer with the sinister voice that this appears to have grown. The harmless doodles of a child had been subverted, and for that, was even more chilling. Again, the hope was that this would be taken to a bigger scale, however I feel that making it A4 would allow it to realistically be something a child may have drawn over without realizing who it was. There is an aura of the sector about this, somethig that haunts your nightmares, which is exactly what I wanted.
Ian Brady: Buried
Final Piece
This piece was inspired by Brady himself, who buried his victims on the moors. I thought it would be fitting to bury a piece of myself with Brady, a letter I wrote between us, burying it for 2 days after which I exhumed it. To my surprise, the letter was almost unreadable, ad so became somewhat of a secret between the two supposed correspondents.
Crit: It was suggested that I bury this on Saddleworth more in Manchester, But in reality this would be quite difficult to do in financial terms, however, would be a interesting concept. Perhaps I could write a letter to Kieth Bennet - the only murder victim who's body has not been recovered - still buried somewhere on Moors.
Final Piece
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