Francesca Woodman. “Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island.” Black & White Film Photograph. 1976.
(nipples blurred for posting on @Instagram)
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Francesca Woodman’s work explores many themes related to anxiety, identity, depression, & loneliness, often through a surrealist black & white lens which helps to give her film photographs a timeless quality (surrealist art is marked by the intense unbelievable, fantastical, and irrational reality of a dream.”).
In this photograph, Woodman presents herself as a solitary figure in a sparse & desperate space. The camera is placed further back from Woodman, creating a space between her & her viewers, as if the viewer is watching from afar, afraid to approach the subject. The light from the window behind her is so blown out that it’s impossible to place the space in any specific location, urban or rural. In fact, it’s possible that anyone observing this scene could imagine it in their own town.
Wearing only shoes & a necklace, Woodman is sitting nude on an old wooden chair, & nothing hides the emotional state she is in. Her face is forlorn as she looks very much lost in her solitude. The shadowy silhouette of a figure on the floor feels ghostly, as if it were representative of something that used to exist, perhaps before depression set in.
It’s important to note that this reading is simply based on what’s in the photograph itself. Biographical evidence of Woodman’s life notes that she appeared to be happy during her time studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. Later, after graduating from her program, Woodman would develop depression as she struggled to get her work shown, & she did ultimately take her own life. There are some who have tried to argue that this work foreshadowed her struggles with depression, but there are also those who argued that this was not the case. Art educator Olga Hubard cautions people to be mindful of the impulse to psychoanalyze an artist, & this seems particularly important to remember when studying the work of Woodman. An artist can create imagery that explores ideas about anxiety, depression, & mental illness without the artist having to have also suffered from those maladies.