Integral to all Natasha Caruana’s art work is the exploration of subversive narratives of love and real life that surround us everyday. To do this, she utilises photography in conjunction with other medium such as audio material, alongside producing and documenting live performance.
Fundamentally themes are the narratives of fidelity and infidelity. The work is produced to question the place of desire and sexuality and complex position of the clandestine lover in contemporary society. This has continually been explored through a variety of works that unraveling both general and specific narratives.
Caruana’s works have continually been inspired through her own experience and drawing from contemporary practitioners working within themes of ethnographic, autobiographical and performance art. Such as Gillian Wearing, Sophie Calle and Oreet Ashery. These works have been contextualized by the writing of Mary Douglas Purity and Danger (1983) and the films of Luis Bunuel – Belle Du Jour (1967) and his later piece That Obscure Object of Desire. (1977).
A key aspect her work Married Man #1 (2007) and Married Man #2 (2008) is the position of the viewer. At times Caruana has struggled with using her own autobiographical narratives as material. Over the past two years when making this work, she has managed to resolve this issue by appropriating the rawness and grittiness of disposable camera images. By utilising this genre of the ‘snap shot’ it has translated a personal response from the artist to her viewers, enabling them to draw from their own experience of love, unfaithfulness and desire.
As a result Caruana draw’s a parallel between the flawed, grainy and scratched surface of the photograph with its sullied, grimy and tarnished content. By using this photographic medium, She is able to explore the desired themes without having to use herself so explicitly. With the use of this medium she directs the viewers response to draw from their own experience of fantasy or understanding of unfaithfulness. This meant, as with previous works, it becomes about the audience questioning and unraveling their own relationship.
Fundamentally themes are the narratives of fidelity and infidelity. The work is produced to question the place of desire and sexuality and complex position of the clandestine lover in contemporary society. This has continually been explored through a variety of works that unraveling both general and specific narratives.
Caruana’s works have continually been inspired through her own experience and drawing from contemporary practitioners working within themes of ethnographic, autobiographical and performance art. Such as Gillian Wearing, Sophie Calle and Oreet Ashery. These works have been contextualized by the writing of Mary Douglas Purity and Danger (1983) and the films of Luis Bunuel – Belle Du Jour (1967) and his later piece That Obscure Object of Desire. (1977).
A key aspect her work Married Man #1 (2007) and Married Man #2 (2008) is the position of the viewer. At times Caruana has struggled with using her own autobiographical narratives as material. Over the past two years when making this work, she has managed to resolve this issue by appropriating the rawness and grittiness of disposable camera images. By utilising this genre of the ‘snap shot’ it has translated a personal response from the artist to her viewers, enabling them to draw from their own experience of love, unfaithfulness and desire.
As a result Caruana draw’s a parallel between the flawed, grainy and scratched surface of the photograph with its sullied, grimy and tarnished content. By using this photographic medium, She is able to explore the desired themes without having to use herself so explicitly. With the use of this medium she directs the viewers response to draw from their own experience of fantasy or understanding of unfaithfulness. This meant, as with previous works, it becomes about the audience questioning and unraveling their own relationship.