Marcy Petit

Residency period: October-November 2019
Website

October 2019

Aklumda is a video performance in four parts, where the artist Marcy Petit engages with ‘the woman inside her’ to walk for several hours with a pair of high heel shoes and a sexualized costume in a difficult and opposed environment. This character, which embodies a supposed model of femininity, is being ridiculed by the situation. As she progresses in her walks, the character is confronted by an environment that she does not recognize and has to overcome the obstacles and the ridicule she faces. Each video has been shot in a completely different landscape and season from one another. 

The four videos screened together represent the four different seasons of a year.

The first video has been shot in England during the autumn
The second video has been shot in France during the spring
The third video has been shot in Switzerland during the winter
The fourth and last video has been shot in Blanca, Spain during the summer
For the last video, Marcy Petit has walked 4 hours throughout the old salt mines of Blanca.

November 2019

IKB – Body print into landscape

This video installation reflects on the trace of human body into landscape and organic material. On it, Marcy Petit uses different parts of her own body to imprint objects. 

The piece is a reference to Yves Klein’s work Anthropometry, in which the artist used naked women as ‘human paintbrushes’, creating paintings that were results of elaborated performances in front of an audience. To Klein, the female figure was the canon of human proportion, an anthropometric symbol that he described as “the most concentrated expression of vital energy imaginable.”

The same blue colour used by him (International Klein Blue IKB)  is used by Marcy Petit, as she becomes a human paintbrush too. However, her video is also a critic of Klein’s action. In contrast to his work, this project is performed without any audience. By using her own body into a natural landscape and by leaving her imprint on natural objects, Marcy is empowering herself as her own model and her own paintbrush.

The result might then no longer relate to Klein´s  concept of « the ideal » but to a self-feminine empowerment.

Into the huerta

In contrast to “IKB – Body print into landscape” , the second installation is a research about the trace of organic objects on textiles. Inspired by the design of the traje de huertana (traditional folkloric dress from the region of Murcia) and by the landscape, Marcy has experimented with printing techniques using vegetal and natural materials on the fabric. 

Traje de huertana means “the dress of the woman of the orchard”. This outfit embodies the representation of the woman as a strong, noble character in a fantastic, almost magic garden and orchard.

Petit is reinterpreting its meaning and definition. The resulting piece shows a colourful, joyful design formed by the prints of the natural surroundings. However, the artist seeks to deconstruct this image by projecting a video into the heart of the fabric where she plays a new character that seems to be lost in an abandoned lemon trees orchard.