Mise en Scene 1 

Men Who are Kept by Other Ladies

Salma

WhereI’m At

The Price of War

The Business of Living of Dying The re-appropriation of photographic material in relation to more graphic representations creates a kind of semiotic tension and in my most recent series and I have utilised drawing and tracing techniques to explore the nature of representation in dialogue with how we perceive reality. This series which is currently untitled appropriates film stills from Vietnam war films and the American tv series 'Madmen'. While initially looking at space in these texts I have become drawn to space in relation to the human figure while examining contexts and framing devices. Something developing in my work is a desire to explore depictions of actual spaces in relation to mental spaces. This particular series of work looks at Pop Art's predisposition to accepting Western industrialisation in contrast with some of the effects of capitalism in action (other than purely commercialisation). I think i of this a guiding force of how our experience is organised and how we experience our psychological and cultural existence which is largely defined by our economic

system. (For better or worse) I like to think of this as a kind of cognitive dissonance of capitalism. The large graphic portrait of the main character in the series Madmen becomes a somewhat iconic emblem of the entire era in 60's America. This was the era my parents grew up in and they always smoked from being young. I think it's is interesting to see how 'success' has changed and how marketing has been focused on 'rebranding' smoking. This work has a socio-psychological aspect to it revealing the infinitely reproducible image of Don Draper smoking like a advert of the cigarettes we used to smoke layered underneath with brutal yet sensitive images of Vietnam war films. How much do we look the other way and who is turning our heads and maybe we are more vulnerable than we like to admit. 

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Kate Peel

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