Woman on the Run
Tracey Snelling
October 2010 - January 2011
in the Street Level Gallery
Tracey Snelling's Woman on The Run will transform the Street Level Gallery
at 21c Museum into another time and place by intricately mixing architecture, scale
modeling, video, photography and 3-D story telling with a heady dose of Hollywood
glamour and Hitchcock-like built-in suspense. A multimedia project, Woman on The
Run explores a fragmented narrative about a fated woman. The main character,
a combination of heroines and femme fatales from 1950s and 1960s film noir, is trying
to escape her fate. A crime has taken place, and she is wanted for questioning.
Throughout the installation, different clues are given about what might have happened
and who the woman is. Is she the victim, or the perpetrator? A study in feminism
or an example of outdated ideas?
An alternate world of shrunken buildings, neon signs, and a life size motel offer
a selection of clues that conspire to initially draw the viewer to the action and
then help them thread together the disconnected story that just happened. The viewer
quickly becomes a witness and to some extent an actor within the story, often assuming
the role of a detective. Video plays in windows and conversations can be overheard.
Reality becomes based more in perception than in absolutes. The blacks and whites
of life shift to grey, and the truth becomes shrouded in mystery.
The installation of Woman on The Run was organized by 21c Museum as part
of an ongoing series of solo exhibitions that highlight individual artists represented
in the 21c collection. Part of the exhibition will be traveling to the Frist Center
for Visual Arts in 2011. Woman on The Run was originally commissioned by
and shown at Selfridges in London during Frieze Art Fair in October 2008.
Snelling lives and works in Oakland, CA. She was recently one of 13 artists chosen
by the Sundance Institute to be presented as part of the 2010 edition of New Frontier
at Sundance Film Festival.
Artist Statement
Driving down the street at night, I look at the lit windows of the houses that I
pass, and I wonder who lives there. What is going on right at this moment behind
that curtain or darn shade? An old motel along the side of the highway sits broken
and abandoned. I want to know the stories of the people who stayed there, the history
of the people who owned it, and why it is no longer inhabited. Better than sifting
through true stories for an interesting one, I prefer to male up the profiles of
the inhabitants by leaving subtle clues that can be interpreted in many ways.
Often overlooked and neglected buildings suddenly become the focus, receiving the
attention they deserve. Weeds growing in concrete cracks and an old piece of trash
are not things to avoid, but rather they are details to pay attention to.
Influenced by film, landscape, books, and architecture, the structures reference
both pop culture and history. A photograph of an actual building can lead to a sculpture
of that building, which in turn, is photographed once again. Scale continually grows
and shrinks in my work, mutating and distorting each time. The psychological aspects
of shelter, 'home', doors, windows, etc., allow me to explore many subjects on another
level.
The structures are made from various materials, including wood, appropriated images,
luminescent wire, small lights, and metal. Some contain sound, water, or motors
for movement. The structures are photographed with a large format camera; the insides
of the rooms are sometimes lit with flashlights. Often, the sculpture is blended
into the outside environment, using similar camera techniques to those utilized
in old films, such as "The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman". Scale is played
with by printing the images large. A small scale object, such as a beer bottle,
can end up being normal scale in a photograph. Sound tracks and video are sometimes
incorporated, using both original and found footage.