Performance nude-Fiona Banner

Almost Fluorescent Nude

2007

Indian ink on wall

1340x2090mm

British artist Fiona Banner explores the limits and possibilities of language in text-based drawings, sculptures and installations. Best known for her laborious, handwritten descriptions of war films and epics such as Lawrence of Arabia, Banner has also used the art-historical genre of the nude to explore issues of violence, vulnerability and voyeurism; and has used sculptures of punctuation to investigate breakdowns and gaps in communication.

 – Excerpt from Artinfo interview, 2006.

Performance Nude

08.08.2010

Film

The process of 'performance nude', particularly in relation to the history and development of Banner's art to date, relies on the meticulous balancing of literary and visual language. Banner's use of writing, language and text is both verbally and sculpturally poised.

As in Banner's use of descriptive text and transcription, the effect of the language is to relay a sense of real time-thus becoming as does the medium of writing in Banner's 'performance nude' both commentary and commemoration.

In her interview, she defines nude in the following terms;

'Nudes are not painted for who they are, but for what they are, and what they offer the viewer'

'Nude is always an act or performance in one way or another.'