Meghan Sangster: Liberation

from Meagan Christou

A performance piece done in partnership with Meghan Sangster in response to the piece Liberation by Frederick Horsman Varley.

In Varley's painting, a transparent figure faces the audience, palms turned up in a passive, letting-go motion. It’s beautiful, this eerie, yielding gesture. He appears as if he were to take one more step, he will break through the plane of the image and into the gallery. But I began to think of the meaning behind this figure, and his significance being a strong male and the need to be “liberated”.
So I decided to create a piece that questioned the idea of being liberated, and the person being liberated. What changes when you use a female nude? Often the female nude is viewed as being the image of femininity, and often sensual. I decided to have her ‘liberated‘, breaking through the boundary, using force and muscle to tear through the division and into our space. It isn’t pretty, and it is a struggle to do so, but it is possible.