Images Have Legs

'Images Have Legs' lies in wait, ready to be brought to life by a passing gallery-goer. The crank handle is turned, and photographic cutouts spin in a mesmeric spiral - momentum gathered beyond the initial activation feeds the sculpture with a constant whirling energy. It’s like walking into an animation – a theatrical world where the flat limbs are reminiscent of a Monty Python graphic, the surreal kinetic collage running and dancing through the gallery space! Much inspiration is drawn from cartoon worlds, particularly the way bodies and matter become flexible and unstable, with an undertone of violent, slapstick humour. The artist says that she “ wanted to create a portrait of the female form - spinning, dangerous, confronting, surreal and funny - hopefully re-framing or drawing attention to the standard practice of fragmenting, objectifying and dehumanizing the images of women we see in film, television, and advertisement. “By decapitating the woman, she becomes an unquestionably passive object to the male gaze. The question of her consent is removed completely alongside her head, and her purpose becomes solely that of being looked at by men obediently. Her value is that only of her sexual appeal to men, and not of her personhood. An interest in the way we experience three-dimensional forms in an age in which our perception is invariably mediated by still and moving images via screens runs through the work. The sculpture bears likeness to an automaton, referencing a history of early image-making and motion-capture techniques such as Edward Muybridge's running horse, or pre-film animation devices such as a Victorian zoetrope.

2018

Kinetic sculpture activated by audience participation

350.0 x 200.0 x 200.0 cm

899

© Lucy Gregory. Image courtesy of The Ingram Collection & Lucy Gregory

This work is part of The Ingram Collection of Modern British & Contemporary Art and was on loan to the Lightbox for the exhibition "Redressing the balance: Women Artists from The Ingram Collection" (11 August - 20 September 2020).