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| Katharina Wulff: Two serious ladies, 2003 oil on canvas 148 x 229cm; courtesy Douglas Hyde Gallery |
Rooted firmly in the objective, the Katharina Wulff exhibition in the Douglas Hyde Gallery main space at once leads the spectator into a curious, fictional world. Consisting almost exclusively of large-scale oil paintings, Wulff’s technique is charming in its naïvety. Evoking a childlike quality, an ostentatious display of draughtsmanship is unimportant and unnecessary. Canvas areas are worked with intense pattern and strong colour, in contrast to Wulff’s ethereal backgrounds. With their awkward bodily proportions, comparing the characters to shop-window dummies would not be unfair. Similar rigid poses and blank, masklike facial expressions repeat throughout the individual works. Compositionally, the main protagonists, visually and in terms of the story, preside over the foreground. They are often close-up to the viewer’s gaze and the canvas edge as though they might step out into the real world at any moment. Backdrops are distant and vague, like barely finished stage sets; the winsome appearance invites the viewer further into Wulff’s imaginary and surreal land.
Influenced by her own life experiences – for example, Wulff has worked in the theatre as a hair designer and would have a developed sense of the costumier’s and set designer’s craft – the subjectivity of the source material is palpable. The attention given to clothing, hairstyle and ornamentation originates from an astute female eye. Characters with beaded hair, diaphanous dresses and fluid empire lines show off a honed fashion sensibility. Wulff’s visual referencing is eclectic, comfortably borrowing images from art history, contemporary painting, oriental design aesthetics, cinema and folk illustration, to create individual, cohesive works. The dictation, 2004, portrays a man in Rococo costume sketching a model clothed in contemporary underwear posed in front of an oriental painted screen. Stylistically, the background tree be could be placed in an eighteenth-century pastoral scene. The dictation is a perfect example of the artist’s magpie process.
This Douglas Hyde Gallery presentation of Katharina Wulff was not produced by the artist as a body of work but deftly curated by DHg from various private collections, bringing together artworks with a shared resonance. Whilst there is strength to this commonality, it is impossible to concretely define exactly what is happening in Katharina-land. Although the initial perception is beguiling and otherworldly, Wulff is more Narnia beyond the wardrobe and the pine trees than The Enchanted Garden. After the first reverie, the work at best communicates a sense of uneasiness; at worst it descends into the realms of the disturbed. The walk in the woods, 2002, depicts a family Sunday stroll in the woods, innocuous in itself; however, a faceless male protagonist pushes his hands inside the open dress of a young girl while the rest of the family gaze blankly at one another. Alone it could stand as an allegory for abusive behaviour and certainly there is shock value. In Two serious ladies, 2003, two women happily picnic on the beach unaware that they are watched by a naked voyeur, their dog’s agitated stance indicating a possible threat. Wulff is unpredictably provocative.
But who are these strange painted ladies with their lustrous hair and pretty dresses, and why do they gaze inwards or stare at their male companions devoid of expression? What is this ambiguous dreamscape they inhabit that is at the same time sublime and menacing? If the eternal message of the fairytale, one of Wulff’s recurring illustrative devices, is that against all odds the good and the pure will prevail over malevolence, then perhaps Wulff’s passive characters look inwards at the struggle of humanity, fated as we are to battle our way against life’s challenges. Could the narrative be the artist outing her own subconscious fears, concerns and desires, coming to terms with adulthood and allowing the percipient to submit to the same psychic examination? Wulff does not give a voice to any specific issues, but many ordinary human thoughts and apprehensions can be easily deciphered from her suggestions. Although the primary response is more one of curiosity, Wulff’s ultimate intention is profound and evocative. The true success of this show is how beautifully we are led through a journey with the artist.
Emer Marron is Senior Administrator in Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin.
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