Image: Jemima WYMAN Thronging bluff face, mixed media, 195 x 160 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane.
This work is approximately 1.95 metres high and 1.60 metres wide and is comprised of mixed media of textiles and plastic with a steel base to display the garment. It was originally worn by the artist for a public performance in 2014 in Southern California.
At the top of the garment are three plastic masks. Working from left to right, is a Guy Fawkes mask popularised by the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta and the hacktivist group Anonymous. The mask is in side profile and turned facing towards the middle. The mask has been attached to a hot pink balaclava which has been drawn on haphazardly in black and green marker.
To the right and in the centre facing outwards is another white plastic mask commonly known as the Scream mask or Ghostface after the Edvard Munch (moonk) painting The Scream from 1893 and became a popular addition to Halloween costumes from the 1990s onwards. The face of the mask is elongated with a vertical oval mouth and haunting black oval eye sockets. The right-hand side has been marked in black spray paint which continues down onto the surface of the fabric to which it is fastened. Attached to the back of the Scream mask is another plastic Guy Fawkes mask, visible from behind.
On the far-right hand side a Guy Fawkes mask is shown in side profile facing in towards the middle of the work. It has also been sprayed in colours of blue, yellow and orange. It is attached to a rainbow striped balaclava with a knitted Peruvian mask in red with distinctive black markings for eyebrows and a moustache that curls up at its ends.
Each of the masks are attached to a patchwork quilt that hangs down and falls approximately 10 centimetres from the floor. A variety of patterns and materials are stitched together to compose the quilt, these include generic patterns used for camouflage for hunting and associated with the military, black, white and red bandanas with paisley patterns, the distinctive checkered design of the keffiyeh representing Palestinian identity, tie-dye peace signs in rainbow colours and the red and white stripes of the American flag. The work can be viewed from all sides.
Dr Hanna Rose Shell, Professor of Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts, and of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado Boulder describes the work as follows,
Thronging bluff face (2014) emerged as a multi-masked garment intended for live performance. It was modified with spray paint and markers during the act of performance—an improvisation in movement and sound, drawing on multiple songs and chants heard at protests. Bluff face continues today in its hybrid existence—as cape, tent, and quilt: a potential shelter from the global storm. Thronging bluff face’s exterior is quilted from a variety of fabrics—from generic DPM patterns to keffiyeh to tie-dye. The reverse side [underside] is composed of nine panels containing hundreds of photographs compiled from both official and vernacular sources documenting street protests.
The artist, Jemima Wyman explains the lure of the masked protestors as follows:
A mask is magic, especially when it multiples to become a communal architecture and social camouflage in a world of networked surveillance.