Stills from Sanctae, Ione Rucquoi, 2012
Please support Joy Experiment artist Ione Rucquoi (and take advantage of a number of unique opportunities to get hold of some of her beautiful and inspiring work) with her appeal to raise the remaining funds necessary to complete her stunning, confrontational and absolutely crucial new body of work Sanctae by following this link: http://www.indiegogo.com/ione-rucquoi?c=home.
Sanctae is a photographic installation of 21, 8ft x 3ft panels of larger than life female nudes, which Ione has already been working on for nearly 2 years. Each panel will bear an individual gold-leaf halo transferred onto the image by hand. With this work Ione will create a space of challenging reflections and revelations about issues of contemporary womanhood. The series endeavours to ‘make saints of the ordinary’ by exploring the female body’s potential to give life, and the intense emotions, expectations and sacrifices inherent in this.
The work examines women’s deep emotional relationship with life and consequent closeness to death. It commemorates loss of the self in the metamorphoses in women’s lives, e.g. from woman to mother, and looks at how women’s bodies are historically and emotionally entangled within patterns of subjugation and objectification.
This project will be the largest piece Ione has created to date and is a great opportunity for her to reach a wider audience and organise a range of workshops and an outreach programme for schools and colleges in conjunction with The Royal West Academy of England www.rwa.org.uk (who will host the first showing of Sanctae).
Creating this body of work has been a huge undertaking and has given Ione the chance to work with 21 exceptional woman, from a gallery owner to a shop assistant to a retired B&B owner to a pole dancing instructor, all women who have bared all for this project, emotionally and physically.
Sanctae is dedicated to dance artist Niki Pollard (1974 – 2010) who sadly died 2 weeks after she posed for the installation. During the The Royal West Academy of England exhibition, funds will be raised for Penny Brohn Cancer Care in Bristol www.pennybrohncancercare.org , a centre for complementary health care supporting people during and after their chemotherapy treatment.
JOY EXPERIMENT 