work in progress show -rca

Still - new series / work in progress

Erin Newell, Method 1, 2008, Lightjet print


Erin Newell, Method 2, 2008, Lightjet print

A Relative Measure of the Self - a new installation

Erin Newell, 2008, photograph on etching of human hair

The starting point for my most recent project is a fascination with hair and the idea of shedding parts of the body signifying a subtle, yet pivotal, moment in time. It is the tension between presence and absence and their potential relocation that I am exploring.

As a moulted form the hair takes on a meaning other than a more traditional representation of beauty. The shedding of hair may be a physical loss from the body but paradoxically it may signify change, as in growth or renewal. I find a strand of hair dramatic yet also distinct with endless connotations. This multitude of possible representations is one of the key elements that intrigue me, however, it is the potential that not only when hair is part of the living body but also when it has been removed, that it becomes a measure of time, perhaps of existence.

The photographs within the installation reiterate another relationship between presence and absence. By removing the face within the portraits, I’m asking a question about identity or the self. I imply that there is no self. No personality.

I'll finish by copying down a quote from T.S. Elliot, who sums up what I'm trying to say not only more poetically but much more concisely


“Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.”
T.S. Elliot