paper tape: intuitive anatomy / deer woman

—Alexandra Unger

Title
Intuitive Anatomy / Deer Woman

Medium(s) / Material(s)
Photography, installation, body, paint.

Technique(s)
Performance, role-playing.

Concept
In Intuitive Anatomy, the artist performs the act of drawing internal organs onto herself using ‘digital paints’; children use these same paints on their own bodies (e.g. by the sea during the summer). Using her own fingers to draw, this act parallels those accomplished during certain rituals in perceivably ‘primitive cultures’ which are, under many circumstances, rites of passage. Unger passes from one stage of life into another; she will soon become a mother. The slaughterhouse is a place of death. According to the Tarot, death is a symbol of rebirth, removal of the unnecessary and the beginning of something new.

In Deer Woman, Unger adopts the role of a wild deer with antlers who escapes the slaughterhouse and reenters nature, serving as an illustration of her own metamorphosis and return to nature.

Bio
Based in London, Alexander Unger is a Swedish artist with an Italian upbringing. Although she shifts from one medium to another, she enjoys crossing boundaries between mediums and combining them. With over twelve years belly dancing experience, the body is her starting point for any understanding of primitive impulses that drive life. With seven years arts studies in Illustration, Sculpture and Fine Art, Unger has exhibited at the Candid Arts Trust and Rampart in London, 3G Arte Contemporanea Gallery in Udine (I), DR Arte Contemporanea and Galleria 291 Est in Rome (I), has screened videos at Stomper events and performed at Future Shorts and Synergie Project in London. Unger’s hologram Beginning was selected by the Musion Awards, and she founded the art group Hysterical Women.