Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman B-1958 D- 1981 Aged 22
  1. Explored gender representation and the use of the female body.
  2. 500+ self portraits often dark and disturbing.
  3. Metaphysical
  4. Often used blur/movement/slow shutter speeds to….. Possibly hide herself, represent self loathing? Or even artistic surrealism.
The bulk of her work included her in the image. I question whether this would (all) be classed as self portraiture. Her death at such a young age (Suicide), has most certainly generated a huge interest/following in her work. That said, the quality and nature of her work is such that, it was only a matter of time/circumstance that would bring her work to the fore. The messages put out there by her work are varied (surprisingly?). Much of her work is dark and disturbing, but she explores multiple issues through this (relatively) narrow presentation style. Broadly, it could be deemed as self portraiture, but I think that a great deal of it would have been seen by her at the time of taking, as coincidentally secondary to her primary point! These being; feminism, the roll of the female within society, how the female body is viewed by both men and women, an exploration of her own body by her, the body in relation to the surroundings, sexuality, religion and her position within it, religion and her failings within it, loathing of her body. Many of her images involve distortion and obscuring (etc) by various means. This intrigues me and lures me in. I like to draw inspiration from many of these images. Slow shutter speeds suggest an ethereal or ghostly feel. She also covers parts of her body with props, which are often barely regarded as a prop e.g. wallpaper, furniture. She also uses the technique of covering her face. Some of her images relate to religious poses (Crucifix) which suggest Catholicism, which (to my mind) always puts great pressures on the individual. She jumped to her death from a multi storey building. Although this is not unique, I can’t help but question why you would end things in this manner. This violent end suggests that there was a point she was trying to make even in death. If not, then why not overdose, or something less violent (I am no expert on these matters and am fully aware that it is a very complex subject). There have been many books written about her, but I feel we are no nearer (Nor ever will be) know her or understanding. I think it is good, if frustrating, that she remains an enigma. Evidence to back up Bright’s analysis. Sadly, there is no evidence to back up Bright’s assumptions. Francesca Woodman took her own life at the age of twenty-two, less than a year out of college. It is known that she suffered from depression, having already failed to take her life a year before. Some of her images are dark and sometimes disturbing, but reading the things her parents have said, also suggests that she had a good sense of humour which often came through in her photographic work. We have to remember that her work never came to prominence until long after she passed away. The people best placed to comment on her work and the link to her mental stability are her parents, and the people that knew and interacted with when she was at college. It is said that at college, she was, if not a loner, then somebody that was more consumed or passionate about her work than social interaction and the acceptance of her peers. She had a number of close friends, one being Sloan Rankin. When she asked Woodman why she was so often the subject of her own photographs, Woodman replied ‘It’s a matter of convenience, I’m always available’1.Rankin, I would say would be able to offer the most balanced of opinions. I think that her parents’ views are also not to be ignored. It is all too easy to put your offspring on a pedestal, but their views are balanced and honest, coming from an artistic professional background. Rachel Cooke tells us “Their memory (FW’s parents) of Francesca is that she wasn’t a “deeply serious intellectual”; she was witty, amusing. “She had a good time,” says Betty. “Her life wasn’t a series of miseries. She was fun to be with. It’s a basic fallacy that her death is what she was all about… They’re often funny (F Woodman’s images). The photographs in Zigzag include playful visual jokes: a pair of fingerless “gloves” made from the bark of tree and modelled by Francesca, whose arms are raised so as to resemble the spindly trunks of the birches nearby; a disembodied pair of legs mirroring a charred-looking V-shaped groove in the ground, as if her body left this impression behind when she unaccountably fell to earth.2  I think that FW would have had frank and honest conversations with her parents, given that they were all artists. Another close friend of hers, Betsy Berne, agrees with her parents that too many people have a blinkered view of Woodman’s work, that of being a portent of what was to come. She also tells us of the wit and humour that exist in her imagery. These are all the opinions of people that knew her, who have based everything they say on fact and recountable stories. It is Berne that offers us the most frank and direct thoughts. Unflinchingly, she says “She had an illness: depression. That’s all there is to it.”2  This is in answer to the suggestion that her suicide was in response to being turned down for a funding application. I think too many people take either an image in isolation, or a ‘genre’ of her work and focus to the detriment of all else on this. Her work is so unusual and varied in content that her life work needs to be viewed as a whole to get a feel for the ‘real’ Francesca Woodman. Her work was both light & dark, and fused together with a lot of surrealist symbolism, such as fish & birds, also heavily featured is the use of mirrors. In much of her work can be seen the influence of Man Ray, a leading light in the early surrealist movement himself. The final entry in her journal reads: “This action that I foresee has nothing to do with melodrama I was (am?) not unique but special. This is why I was an artist…I was inventing a language for people to see the everyday things that I also see…and show them something different…Nothing to do with not being able ‘to take it’ in the big city or w/ self-doubt or because my heart is gone. And not to teach people a lesson. Simply the other side.”3 What we lost was a prolific talent, somebody that produced in the first twenty-two years, what other accomplished artists would fail to achieve in a lifetime. We can only wonder what would have followed, had she not succumbed to the effects of depression. Reference 
  1. (quoted in Rankin 1998, p.35).
  2. Rachel Cooke. 31st August 2014. Searching for the real Francesca Woodman. The Guardian/Culture/Photography
  3. Julia Fiore. 22nd August 2018. Reevaluating Francesca Woodman, who’s early death haunts her groundbreaking images. Artsy.net.