“Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb Portrait” is my photo-media art performance piece. In it I utilize the crafting of period clothing as an inter-cultural exploration about identity, in a distant but analogous exploration to the recent works of William Yang and/or Vanessa Beecroft.
The look and style of ‘Lady Eureka’ images is based on the Gothic Lolita (aka GothLoli), Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL) or Elegant Gothic Aristocrat (EGA); EGL and EGA are subsets of Gothic Lolita, a youthful and feminine look. The sub-cultural styles are popular with Asian women as in past generations their clothing styles were very conservative and modest. Contemporary Asian ‘cute’ fashion may be a reaction to the seemingly overt sexuality of Western women’s clothing.
Lolita in “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb Portrait” is a High Art interpretation of girlishness where “calling a grown woman a girl can imply she’s not complete, mature, or grown-up” (Guerilla Girl, 1995). However, some feminists and Westerners might view Lolita as a fashion father/daughter fetish with reference to the infamous Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita novel (1955) and film (1962 and 1997). However, most Gothic Lolitas and followers of the fashion do not consider this look sexual or referencing inappropriate or salacious sexual mores.
The Gothic Lolita look is also found in Anime. Anime, like manga (Japanese comics), is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world. Anime has been distributed via television, directly to video, theatrically, online or at Anime festivals where dressing up in costumes is a family-oriented activity (Anime Evolution).
The popularity of the GothLoli styles in Asia is based on an interest in the nineteenth century Victorian era. It is not equivalent to western street-style Goth, but rather it’s the aesthetic of the Victorian gothic horror novels, my area of expertise/interest/scholarly research. It is an elegant mixture of romance and innocence.
The images of “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb Portrait” include a hand-sewn lace curtain, with the lace motif repeated in her stockings. GothLoli is a kind of kinder Goth look of childhood as it emphasizes Victorian-style and Edwardian girl’s clothing imitating the look of Victorian porcelain dolls. The basic GothLoli look is usually all in black, or combines black with minimal accents of white. A petticoat or crinoline underskirt created the bell-shaped silhouette, under a basic circle skirt, as worn by Lady Eureka.
In addition, the Gothic Lolita wardrobe includes demure items such as high–collared, long–sleeved shirts and dresses. Heavy white or black stockings or knee–high socks compliment large platform shoes such as child-like shoes or boots called Mary Janes for a classic schoolgirl look (also worn by Lady Eureka). Frilly, ruffled or lace-trimmed Victorian blouses are also popular with Gothic Lolitas and designs are usually modest, sometimes with long lace-capped sleeves and high-necked Peter Pan blouses. In the “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb Portrait” images, Lady Eureka is wearing a hand-sewn peasant top. In the predominantly female Gothic Lolita sub-culture, home sewing and other DIY crafts are commonly practiced.
The final Gothic Lolita, EGL or EGA accessory of importance is a headdress, headband, or hair clips with bows, ribbons, and ruffles on them or a mini top hat. Other GothLoli accessories include capes (hand-crafted and worn by Lady Eureka) handbags, small backpacks and purses, sometimes in the shape of bats, coffins, and crucifixes. In the case of the Lady Eureka series, she is wearing rosaries with the icon of the Virgin Mary. Teddy bears, stuffed animals and lap dogs (referenced by the “Lion-Lamb”) are also common, as well as Super Dollfie or other ball-jointed dolls with matching outfits to the GothLoli wearer.
The subtext could be interpreted that by wearing girlish clothes, Asian women are telegraphing the weakness or helplessness of a child. However, in Asia, Japanese culture in particular places a higher value upon extremely youthful appearance and behaviour, and some adult women buy large amounts of consumer products, such as Hello Kitty goods, (typically marketed only to children in the West). GothLoli is a visible extension of this phenomenon of infantalizing women. “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb Portrait” is a performance art piece that reveals the divergent inter-cultural perspectives of a contemporary Asian-Canadian women’s identity and plays with her interpretation of ‘cosplay’ sexuality in a High Art genre which references painting and novels of the nineteenth century, as well as contemporary popular fashion of Japan.
Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb Portrait
END NOTES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita_fashion
http://www.morbidoutlook.com/fashion/articles/2002_07_gothiclolita.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Beecroft
http://www.vanessabeecroft.com/
