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A series of nine charcoal drawings on Arches
paper, pinned into bespoke entomological
drawer (waxed sapelewood, with
laminated
glass and brass fixings)
Dimensions: 92.7cm (w) x 76.2
cm (h) x 6
cm (d)
Individual drawing dimensions:
14cm x 25cm
approx © Pip Dickens
The 'Elephant Man/Cloud' Drawings acknowledge
transformations taking place
in the world
of photography and medical science
during
Joseph Merrick’s lifetime. An
example would
be the groundbreaking examination
of a horse
running - sequential photography
by Edweard
Muybridge.
Joseph Merrick participated in
freak shows
in London and Europe from the
1870s. A public
campaign to raise money for Merrick’s
living
expenses in the London Hospital
was launched
in The Times in 1886. Muybridge
produced
his running horse photographs
in 1878.
Merrick was an object of scrutiny
and spectacle
whether it be to shock and amuse
the public
or for the purposes of medical
examination
and investigation. Whatever the
intentions
he was, in both cases, treated
as a specimen,
or phenomenon.
Another Victorian phenomenon
was the London
fog aka as ‘London Particular’
or ‘Pea Souper’.
Whistler and Monet painted it
in a melodramatic
sombre beauty. Writers including
Dickens,
Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson,
Marie
Belloc Lowdnes, Nathaniel Hawthorne
and Max
Schlesinger described it in all
its grim
reality. ‘Bleak House’ and ‘Great
Expectations’
are key examples. Its appearance
often signals
the manifestation of evil and
confusion in
the forms of Mr Hyde in ‘Jekyll
& Hyde’,
Jack The Ripper, the mythological
‘Spring
Heeled Jack’ and the serial ‘Avenger’
killer
in Hitchcock’s ‘The Lodger: A
story of the
London Fog’ based on Lowdnes’
book.
Fog confuses, conceals and distorts.
Vision
is impaired. Figures, real and
imaginary,
materialise and de-materialise
through it.
Truths are hidden and identities
appear to
change. Space and time is disorientated.
Fog is closely associated with
the Thames
and the identity of London itself
through
its ever-changing character.
It carries both
positive and negative values.
The tension between the (traditional)
mysteries
of natural phenomena and (new)
rational-scientific
in Victorian times is highly
evident.
The drawings are part of the
‘Fabrications’
series of painting and drawings
by Pip Dickens.
To see the drawings in more details
go to
the Elephant Man 'Cloud' Drawings page.
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