Lisa Willgress

I am developing a new piece that attempts to explore the tale of Lilith, often described in Jewish mythology as the first woman, created before Eve. She was cast out of Eden for refusing to submit to Adam and asserting her equality by rejecting a subordinate position. Some traditions depict her as a demonic figure who steals children in the night, while others reclaim her as a symbol of female autonomy, power, and resistance, a source of divine feminine energy and proto feminist force (Biblical Archaeology Society, 2014). I’m interested in exploring the notion of the self and the body in contemporary consumer culture, our relationship with the body and how much of it we consume through marketing and social media and how that has shaped us and the way we see. I want to explore the tension between the sense of self, the power of the mind, and our cultural preoccupation with the female body and feminine signifiers, the reduction of wholeness into fragmented parts, and explore the concept of faux-empowerment. And what, or who, brought us here?
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For this piece, I would love to learn clay sculpture production, as well as casting and finishing with hyper-real silicone, airbrushing skin and inserting hair. I have had such a strong feeling for many years that this is something I want to learn and employ in my practice, and I feel would really elevate me as an artist. For this piece, I want the central figure to be 8 ft tall, a cast of a head suspended without a body, completely covered in hyper long black hair, all the way around, with the hair covering the features, yet not seen by the viewer. This ‘Mother’ piece ‘feed’s its twin children, via transparent tubes, emerging from the black hair and into the child sculptures, in which my previous work, ‘Between Us’, influences the form of the children.
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The first child is completely covered in fake glacier cherries, by their stalks. The form itself is a skin-like rubber moulded into an abstract shape of a pelvis. There is a ‘dent or ‘well’, in the front and middle of the form to represent both the vagina and the well which is made when adding the wet ingredients like egg, to flour, when making a classic Victoria Sponge cake. This well has 2 tablespoons of milk and an egg in it. The form has three matching 1960s furniture hairpin-like legs attached to it, and stands on a round, short mirrored plinth. The plinth has a small mechanical motor in it, which produces a figure 8 motion, to make the hundreds of cherries hanging from it move. This agitation of the cherries makes a sound to recreate the sound of costume jewels that hang from a feminine performer, like a show girl, dancer or stripper. The sound itself signifies a swaying of hips or breasts. The desire/temptation tension.
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Child 2 is formed in the same way, with the same plinth and motion, but this child is covered in a fine soft mohair-type fur. Long enough to sway when agitated, and its well has two tablespoons of evaporated milk in it, with a slice of tinned peach.

Update: Whilst working with the maquette, I am reflecting on the materials and I feel like I want to elevate the types of materials for child one and child two. I'm thinking about black and milk coloured resins or ceramic, transparent resin or possibly even glass, with gold leaf, ceramic appliqués would be a very interesting direction to go in. These would allow for deep material exploration and allow me to add deeper layers to the concept.
Recent influences are Racheal Maclean and Claire Anderson and Magda von Hanau (pictured L-R below)**
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This work will attempts to explore the evolution, from the perhaps unintentional brave and rebellious tale of Lilith in religious works, to the contemporary presentation of feminine form and psyche, directly highlighting the demonisation of the female, here represented by 'Lilith' and her twinned offspring, through religion, which entirely shaped humanity, cultures and our value systems over the centuries. This was to devalue the female, and usurp the power of the 'true creator', in a symbolic sense. The de-valuing of the female mind and intellect, in favour of passivity and sublimation and also, the impact that has had on our very bodies. I'm interested in exploring how these narratives still exist within culture today. The domestic baking ingredients and cheap deserts within the twin sculptures, play with ideas of domesticity and class. The milk and eggs in the well, are part of the classic Victoria Sponge cake recipe, and the evaporated milk and peach slice is a classic, cheap, sweet ‘afters’.
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Biblical Archaeology Society. (2014). Lilith: Ancient Demon, Dark Deity or Sex Goddess? Retrieved from https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/lilith/

This piece looks at the connection between two beings, and states of being, and the feminine as object, objectified and fetishised. A hangover of expectation predominantly experienced throughout my lifetime, from the 80s to present, and the lengths I feel I have gone to, to be connected to another being, and a higher state of being, whilst having this very real understanding of my own cognitive patterns and negative bias, based on my family life. How do we build awareness of our minds and behavioral patterns, and how do we create the picture we imagine for ourselves, outwardly, to be desired by another? How do we single out what parts of our personalities we desire to be more connected with? What happens to the parts of us we know may not be as pleasant or desirable? How does self-awareness emerge within us? And, what does it take? How does the way in which we are brought up impact our future self and our relationships? And ultimately, how can our perceived floors be manipulated and abused by our inherited ideologies and by others?
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The first figure is a fetishised duality of feminine signifyers. The 1960s lamp symbolises the decoration and comfort of domesticity, and how we select objects to construct our identity through aesthetic style and preferences. This object is adorned with long, glossy black hair, extremely long fingernails, and the decorative hat pin, which pierces the voluptuous ‘body’, the fetishisation of the object and a hint at a sadomasochistic sensibility. Is this desire or subjucation?

The tube comes from the body and is connected to the smaller second form. This form is more passive and softer. With three wooden 60s ‘hairpin’, slim legs, tapering at the feet, there is some precarity and unbalance. The ‘body’ is smaller and symbolises the pelvis and womb. Attached to the piece is a vacuum pump for the female genitalia. This is only able to be correctly used when the female is in a reclined and 'vulnerable' position.

I am now working on my next piece, Mother. This will be a much more refined and intentional piece that digs deeper into the sense of self concerning contemporary relationships with exhibitionism, desire and what it means to have bodily autonomy.

Two words: First Word appeared at the as part of the Objectified exhibition at CICA Museum, South Korea, 2018, and as part of the Inland Neither exhibition at 198 in Brixton in 2017.
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This work attempts to play with the power dynamics of desire and the gaze. The performance and video work was created using a set designed of fake grass, pink celophane, and helium balloons, weighted down by beaded bangle sweets. The other objects, the space hopper, lollipop, balloons and toys all prime the scene as a 'young girl' in playful and lustful poses and actions, attempts to draw in and disarm the viewer. As we watch on, soon a subtle shift starts to take place, and the female starts to look intently down the lens, slowly turning cold and dead eyed, watching those that look at her, and in doing so aims to turn the passive consumer into the work of art, subjected to her gaze. In an attempt to highlight and play with the power dynamics in the way we experience the piece.

The audio is a cacophony of pop songs that seemingly melt into each other. Brand New Key by Melanie, 1971, and Os Mutantes, Baby, 1968. Both songs feature sweet female voices and lyrics themed around youthful almost virginial love. The bed of the audio, contains audio captured from the recording itself, which I mixed to become an unpleasant sound of the actor licking the lollipop, to juxtapose the seemingly seductive action, with a repellant sound. As Melanie's sweet singing fades back to the centre, the actor 'snaps' out of the intrusion into the viewers space, with a smile, and goes about her business of bouncing.

In 2016, I exhibited at The Other Art Fair at the Truman Brewery in London. Most artists use the fair to exhibit and sell their works. I was very interested in using the stall purely as an installation piece. I wanted to create something amongst the clean and refined consumable art that was on display and up for grabs. Growing up in a working-class family, and then entering the lower, ‘breadline’ class when I became a single mother, my values and perspectives shifted. At the time, I had been experimenting with installation spaces, much like empty film sets that allowed the viewer to become part of the work.

With Old Boy, I wanted to convey the disintegration of the self and taking care of oneself, when you struggle for enough money for food, and heating. And this overwhelming sense of real loss, like a grief, of having to let go of any ideas of dreams you might have had for your life. The empty bottles of ale, the bags of butcher’s lard for cooking, the damp and mould on the 'aged' wallpaper. A relic of perhaps better times, the decor is styled in ‘60s and ‘70s manner, which has faded over time, reflected in the implied presence of the inhabitant.
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For the production of the piece, I collected together items found mostly in charity shops or car boots, which were where I bought my furniture and clothes and anything I’d needed for myself and my son. We'd made the 'charity shop shopping' into a fun day out. Finding 'treasure' and cherishing each item we found. I hand-painted the 'retro vintage' wallpaper, sourced from Wilko, to re-create mould. Again, mould exposure in the various rented accommodations had severely and permanently impacted my health. This is a very typical, and an example of something out of your control, that is just not 'fixable', when you dip under a certain threshold of income. No one cares; no one thinks anything of your quality of life. Instead, you're made to feel ungrateful.
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I had recalled when making this piece, the stories of spontaneous combustion, I'd read years before. The black and white pictures of old armchairs, covered in black burns and shoes or other clothing that were all that was left of the victim of this utterly bizarre yet completely tangible to me, chemical anomaly. By creating something like that here, with modelling gravel, normally used in board gaming and miniature worlds. This was mixed with black paint. For the ale, I used resin and a transparent colouring. This was also applied to the ashtray, a trick of using the dregs of your drink to stop the cigarette butts from smoking after you put them out.

With this work, I was trying to illustrate loneliness and how anyone in a single armchair might burn up one day, all by themselves, to no one’s knowledge. Alone, just existing until the fateful day when you, too, just burn away, spontaneously combusting back into nothingness. It was just such a desperate and overwhelming thought. And one that I had faced myself many times over in the new socio-economic reclassification of myself, and the overwhelming sense of shame that seemed to come with it. So many days were spent just ‘existing’. This is so hard to convey, and trying to protect my son’s young mind from the cold reality of it. It’s one of those circumstances where, if you know, you know. And this was my attempt at bringing this to the fore, in an environment where one might question the purpose of art and in this particular context, I wanted to see who might dare to engage with this piece, amongst the other artists exhibiting who used a more conventional, and I dare say more profitable strategy to their stand.  Was The Other Art Fair, in its genuine rebuttal to the high-brow collectors’ art world, actually missing the point altogether? Or was I? Either way, I was compelled to make a spectacle of this concept.

This piece is an intimate retelling of my period of nightmarish reality, making an obvious reference to Tracey Emin’s work, My Bed. This work, however, was very much a representation of the lived experience of sexual abuse and depression and a period of intense mental disconnection.

A lifeless ‘body’ lies under mattress filler material, pulled from the mattress, repurposed as a blanket. The shop model, typically frozen in a displayed position with a fixed and enduring smile. Dressed in the clothes I had been wearing for days and nights on end. I used this as an disembodied, empty, numb, human-like object, as this captured me, and my sense of self, utterly eroded. I was at the time classed as a vulnerable adult, with undiagnosed PTSD, diagnosed dissociative disorder, and the perpetrator of the abuse had videotaped ‘sessions’, and he informed me amongst his many other folders of his 'conquests', he'd filed me under ’Scum’, which I knew was inspired by the SCUM Manifesto book he'd noted on my bookshelf. Next to the mattress were cups, one of which had the words ‘Good Morning Beautiful’ on it. I thought the placement was really powerful in this context. Sad, funny and tragic. The mattress was the actual mattress on which the acts of sexual violence were carried out. There is still a black restraint tied to the mattress handle. I cut the bed down the middle for this piece, and black paint was poured on it. In this way, the darkness was being visually represented for all to see, as I hadn’t told anyone about what was happening to me throughout my relationship. The notion of the mattress being the place where one can rest, and sleep and maybe even be embraced and loved. This mattress was a place of sleep deprivation, humiliation, degredation, abuse and of countless nights and hours spent drugged and desperately holding on to my mind and sanity.