Anne Levitch

The wicked queen in the tale of 'Snow White', obsessed by what she deems as her flawless reflection determines to remove any threat to her supremacy.

Throughout history, wars are fought and millions slaughtered on the basis of a similar obsession with self-righteousness. The superlative of 'fairest' takes on layers of meaning in this work, as the mirror prompts silent reflection.

Fairy tales have endured through millennia evolving through oral, written and cinematic form, as reflections of particular circumstances which occur continually through time. They have been inappropriately designated as stories for children alone.

As extant codices of ancient wisdom shrewdly compressing raw and uncomfortable truths into narrative form, they maintain contemporary relevance for all ages. These gems from the past, can help focus on issues and responses that help us to influence and determine our future.

A multi-disciplinary solo project with a vision to extend and broaden the viewing experience by introducing an intersectional approach. Through a layering of experience, where artist becomes dramaturg, the fields of theatre, and visual arts, overlap to augment and create what Wagner popularized as the Gesamtkunstwerk, facilitating potential of a greater affect through synthesis of artforms.

The exhibition grew from exploration into contemporary relevance of the traditional fairy tale where storylines shapeshift and evolve through milennia, presenting narratives of adversity, struggle, transformation and re-emergence often including the uncanny. Tales continue to hold liminal relevance as extant codices for ancient wisdom.

THE FOURTH WALL presents a mise-en-scène to the viewer, a metafictional forest, where they break the fourth wall in reverse, joining the fairy tale characters on ‘stage’ thus entering the narrative topos.

Jack Zipes states ‘inevitably they (fairy tale characters) find their way into the forest. It is there that they lose and find themselves. It is there that they gain a sense of what is to be done. The forest is always large, immense, great, and mysterious. No one ever gains power over the forest, but the forest possesses the power to change lives and alter destinies.’

The setting of the forest was developed around the established philosophical framework of magical realism where realistic detail is combined with magical / metafictional elements to make a point about reality.

As a mise-en-scène the exhibition explores the intersectional impact of fairy tale on reality, reality on fairy tale creating space for the viewer in between.

The exhibition included installation, sculpture, and photography.

This series was created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

153.3cm x 110.5cm x 5.5cm

giclée print on canvas in oak frame

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #77

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #88

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #86

A series of photographs, exploring the contemporary relevance of fairy tales, making connections between past and present, between present and future, between fiction and reality.  

First, I built a ‘forest’ in my studio, an installation that made connections between the real and the abstract, then introduced protagonists, struggling to find themselves and each other, to make connection in a meaningful way in this metafictional stageset.

Jack Zipes said of fairy tale characters "Inevitably they find their way into the forest. It is there that they lose and find themselves. It is there, that they gain a sense of what is to be done. The forest is always large, immense, great and mysterious...but possesses the power to change lives and alter destinies."

We all find ourselves lost in this 'forest' at times challenged to make connections that allow for change facilitating transformation. 

Sometimes, we cannot see the forest for the trees.

This series of photographs were created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

85cm x 59.4cm unframed

Giclée prints on 310gsm archival cotton rag

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #56

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #60

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #64

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #87

I created this series of photographs, in exploring the chimera of that we cannot see. Sometimes the more we try to focus, the more an image recedes. Fairy tales form part of our cultural heritage, our collective consciousness. They lie in the dark recesses of our psyches.

These images explore the contemporary relevance of these tales, making connections between past and present, between present and future, between fiction and reality.

Having constructed a mise-en-scène, a metafictional forest, I introduced protagonists to interact within.

Jack Zipes said of fairy tale characters "Inevitably they find their way into the forest. It is there that they lose and find themselves. It is there, that they gain a sense of what is to be done. The forest is always large, immense, great and mysterious...but possesses the power to change lives and alter destinies."

This series was created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

62cm x 44.5cm framed

giclée print on museum rag paper

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #46

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #77

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #78

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #88

SCENES FROM THE FOREST #95

A photographic body of work in the exhibition FOURTH WALL, exploring the contemporary relevance of the traditional fairy tale as codice of ancient wisdom.

Becoming dramaturg, the exhibition is conceptualized around the stage, a mise-en-scène, where viewer is both actor and acted upon. The fourth wall is reversed, as the viewer enters the ‘set’.

The forest becomes both metaphor and metafiction where the past continues to exist in the present.

These works were created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

They reference the metafictional forest as a place we both lose and find ourselves. There is always a way out, a map, a plan, a guide, a road less travelled. The question is ‘are we able to see it’?.

This body of work was an installation forming part of the exhibition

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

It was created as the mise-en-scène where the viewer crossed the fourth wall in reverse, finding themselves on stage in their own metafictional forest. The forest in fairy tales is a place of transformation.

The arboretum is a constructed forest, a museum for trees, a place for the study of trees, a place to raise and study trees from other lands, a facility where trees are cultivated for exhibition, and by extension for this exhibition, a place for the metaphysical study of trees, a place for contemplation, a chance to be in a forest from other realms, a place where change is entirely possible.

This photograph was created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

47cm x 34cm x 5.2cm

giclée print on canvas in oak frame

Fairy tales are codices of ancient wisdom.

The work explores the contemporary relevance of Snow White, a tale that draws attention to the abuse of power, to survival despite another who is focused on destruction. She entered the forest, with fear, foreboding and threats against her existence, and emerged, transformed.

There has been a widespread interest in the revival of rhetoric and the uses it may serve in effecting social change. Art is most effective when it engages a viewer in visual dialogue, a form of rhetoric, designed to evoke emotional reaction and desired response.

Fairy tales are a form of rhetorical device in story form, and the connective tissue between literature, psychology and philosophy in the Snow White tale is evident. The tale is a powerful and enduring simulacrum with no universal definitive version. The differences are where its endurance lies, endowing the eternal return of the tale with heroic archetypal context.

The recursion of 'Snow White' over centuries gives it power, and allows it to be classified as a 'trope'.

The theory of posthegemony, and the nature of power imbalance, endows Snow White with tropological agency, in juxtaposition with contemporary situations of power hierarchies.

She is far more than Disney’s pretty face.

These works were created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

The forest is full of the unexpected. Things are not what they seem. Branches are bent, torn, burnt, bleached, knobbled. Others are uprooted and seemingly float in the air. We need to suspend our disbelief and be open to seeing the world differently.

This work was created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

plywood, printer toner

225cm x 20.5cm x 3cm

This photograph was created for the exhibition:

FOURTH WALL / scenes from the forest

47cm x 34cm x 5.2cm

giclée print on canvas in oak frame

Performance by Katya Petetskaya as guest-artist presenting devised work responding to FOURTH WALL/ scenes from the forest, exhibition at Barometer Gallery May 8, 2021.

For more information, go to:

website: katyapetetskaya.com

instagram: katya.petetskaya

VANISHING POINT (after Magritte) I, II, and III

3 panels each 238 x 168cm - pastel, charcoal, Xerox transfer, pencil and ink on aggregated butter paper.

The subtle societal inference that we ‘know not what happens behind closed doors’, supports our turning of backs in acknowledging the existence, and prevalence of domestic abuse and violence escalating globally around us.

With this series, I attempt to ‘open the door’ a little, to explore a potential behavioural architecture within the domestic sphere. The work references the metaphorical meaning of the composite term architect (from the Greek ‘archi’ - ‘chief’ and ‘tekton’ - ‘creator / planner’) in the systematic planning and use of coercive control to construct an immobilizing environment of fear.

The series combines an open conceptual drawing style, using line and mark generally used in the production of minimal architectural schematics, with appropriated figures and interior frameworks from three of Magritte’s Surreal constructions. I have then introduced elements from fairy tales, including storylines, characters and objects, to further explore the subconscious / unconscious psychological ‘blueprints’ that potentially have continuing influence and cultural agency regardless of gender. The mirror as psychic object has central importance, on one level, serving as a narcissistic tool of self-important admiration, conversely it also provides the opportunity for personal and societal reflection.

VANISHING POINT III

The image ‘tucked’ into the mirror frame is a family snapshot of Hannah Clarke and her three children who were burnt to death in the family car by the husband and father Rowan Baxter at around 8.30am on February 19, 2020 in Brisbane, Australia. The time on the clock is set accordingly.

I would like to dedicate this work to Hannah and her children, Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4 and Trey, 3.

‘metoo I, II + III’

56cmH x 38cm / 2020 / acrylic paint on paper

In principle, I created the series, as a complex visual amalgam to honour the #metoo movement. Women have gathered together, through the power of social media connectivity, in the face of threat to present a united ‘front’ that has provided safety in numbers.

To use a term coined by Marshall McLuhan, the ‘sense ratio’ is changing, which affects social organisation. In the meantime, undeveloped alpha males who staunchly represent and protect what they see as the established ‘natural order of things’ have started bemoaning their victimhood in the face of accusations and ‘tagging’ as patriarchal predators.

By introducing the simple form of a ‘tag’ in this series, I am referring to the multiple uses and embodied media power of the term in commercial, cultural, and collective forms. Firstly, as a ‘label attached to someone or something for the purpose of identification’. Secondly as a term commonly used in social media, where to ‘tag’ is to join, to build and strengthen threads of connections between people. Thirdly, as a term used in the context of ‘tagging’ a replacement.

Finally, as a last minute addition...’tagging’ on.

The series, has agency within all definitions above, referencing the power McLuhan termed ‘collective identity’ within what has gradually become the ‘global village’. . The ‘metoo’ tag also has visual resonance with a price tag, where we could reason that the price of being female is too high at times.

Conversely, the alpha males are ‘tagging’ themselves as the victims in this battle of the sexes. The Snow White costume adds emphasis to the role and the roleplay, the underbelly, the backstory, where ‘tagging’ by a dominant power has life threatening consequences. The past continues to influence the present.Colour variation is applied to the series indicating the superficiality of skin colour, or clothing which is a way we often culturally tag or segregate peoples into what we see as ‘the other’ in a tribal context.

These works are the results of a hybrid process in image making. I have layered creative processes through manual and digital manipulation - photography, cyanotype, collage, pastel, and paint.

In continuing my creative exploration into the contemporary relevance of fairy tales, I again introduce Disney’s Snow White (1) as visual trope. She became one of the most recognisable of Disney’s characters due to her signature ‘uniform’, of yellow skirt, blue bodice, puffed sleeves with red scye slots, white up-stand collar, back cape, black hair and red ribbon with bow atop. Artists Paul McCarthy, Paula Rego, and Dina Goldstein created well known contemporary works predicated on the fame and ubiquity of Disney’s Snow White as their platform for resistance. This has influenced my approach. Her puritanical innocence and idealised subservience create a backdrop, a platform to contrast realism against the ideal. As a visual trope, I use Snow White to ‘interrogate the lack of correlation between real world practices and ethical idealistic options’ . (2)

The roles in original oral versions of Snow White had some fluidity. Karpman’s theory of drama script analysis in fairy tale (3), proposes a dramatic triangle between victim, persecutor and rescuer, in which roles switch to create the dramatic tension. We live in a culture of hierarchy, of dramatic triangles, where equality should prevail. Nationalist hegemony is gradually being replaced by local, infranational and transnational ‘multitudes’ as social forces that share motivations to stand against dominant hierarchies.(4) This new order has been called posthegemony. Movements such as metoo, and Black Lives Matter are examples of transnational ‘multitudes’ that are building momentum.

Police, the social rescuers are switching roles to become the perpetrators of police brutality. The protagonists of this compositional drama are both female. Neither face is visible, the ‘uniforms’ tell us a story. Through layered ambiguity, it references the dramatic tension and binary oppositions as roles change.

The title layers the legal term of ‘probable cause’ with ‘improbability’ / unlikelihood of a circumstance or event. Is it past versus present, authoritarianism against innocence, power of the state versus civilian, women pitted against each other, fairytale versus reality, morality versus immorality, mother against child? The meaning is open and mutable ... just like a good fairy tale.

1 ) ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ by Walt Disney Productions 1937
2 ) Jack Zipes, ‘The Art of Subversion’ 2012 pp. xiii
3 ) Steven Karpman, ‘Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis’ 1968/2011
4 ) George Yúdice ‘Civil Society, Consumption, and Governmentality in an Age of Global Restructuring: An Introduction’ 1995.

The formation of diamonds occurs deep within the Earth. People we love are buried here in the Earth. The hole is smaller than the vast emptiness left in the heart. While deep grief and loss have darkened the refracting light of life in this diamond, its strength, beauty and purity remain unchanged. Memories, some joyful, some dark and some powerful, arise, demanding attention through the alchemy of our psyche, revealing the multitudinous facets of a life.

Abstracted metaphysical form referencing a physical state of identity at a particular point in an imagined temporal cycle.

Abstracted metaphysical form referencing a physical state of identity at a particular point in an imagined temporal cycle.

Viewers are encouraged to bring their own interpretation to this installation, as it has layers of meaning depending on the standpoint.    

Turf Wars draws attention to the fragmentation of land and the concept of ownership.  Natural habitats are broken up, divided, fenced and tamed into synthetic environments of our liking, where we strive for ownership.  However, while we create boundaries around our own precious patches of 'turf', others are being turfed from their ancestral homelands.

While fragmentation is inherent in so many forms, from partnerships, to families, to communities, ethnic groups, countries, and nations, a vestige of the relational whole remains.  Division and establishment of boundaries and fences is a constant, however the pieces, while separating and disparate, still show the remains of connection to a greater whole.

As children, we are drawn to putting puzzle pieces together. As we grow, the complexity and scale of the puzzles increase, however the desire to create order from chaos remains.  We can grow apart, be torn apart, but collective memory and the desire for wholeness persists in our consciousness.

selected for ‘Sculpture Inside’ exhibition

Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe,
Western Australia, 2018

mixed media

70 x 56 x 30cm together

a pair constructed from a ‘constellation’ of disparate materials, associated by circular form, enabling them to spin in each other’s orbit

purchased by Forrest collection

selected for ‘Sculpture Inside’ exhibition

Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, NSW, Australia, 2018

mixed media

57cm x 30cm x 24cm

83cm x 25cm x 25cm

A pair constructed from a ‘constellation’ of disparate materials associated by circular form, enabling them to spin in each other’s orbit.

purchased by private collection

Through use of a common cultural symbol, the diamond ring, used to denote agreement in future partnership, this installation, through deconstruction, explores our terms of engagement.  From the micro level to the macro level, we are in partnership at every level.   The cornerstone of a successful partnership is respect.

Diamonds, as symbols of value and agreement to future partnership, are offered as gifts.    While diamonds refract and bounce light through the many facets, this diamond bounces a concept, an exploration of respect for partnership and the creation of value in our lives.

Weathered steel is a reference to the colour of Western Australian earth, where lies the greatest wealth, our iron ore, to the strength of the Australian sun, elements, and raw beauty.  It also references the velvet lining of the ‘jewellery box’ that holds our natural resources.

The polished stainless steel band reflects strength, durability, resistance as well as industry, and transformation of nature’s gifts into a material that supports our lifestyle in so many ways.

This symbol of engagement references the partnership of earth with industry, through to the personal with the collective and all in between.

The location on the beach, supports the concept as it is the meeting place where two come together, the sea and land, in a tidal partnership of elements.

Social aspect of art, space and spectator engagement was the stimulus for this work.  Spectators In proximity and response, gives it purpose. It frames the present, references the past and proposes a future. Our outlook on life is influenced by the 'box' we choose to live in. 

Emphasising the ambiguity of the active and passive, the viewer can step through a threshold and find themselves as observer or observed...questioning the roles they play.  When observed - behaviour changes. The work encourages spectators to pose and take photos of friends and family, within these frames of reference. In eras past, painted portraits or scenes adorning walls were precious representations.  Now we capture multitudinous moments in search of the perfect.

The transitional locus of beach, between land and sea, reflects transition in time, space and focus.  Weathering steel is quintessentially Australian. Harsh climate corrodes the steel providing surface finish of depth and beauty, like velvet lined drawing rooms of eras past, adorned with painted portraits in elaborate frames. Rust represents both richness and decay. Past frameworks of existence have been eroded yet shadows influence our present.  Material and treatment provides stark contrast with ornamental detail created by what has been removed. 

2016. Mixed Media. Soap. Plaster.

Chippendale Creative Precinct - Chippendale New World Art Finalist 2016

Mixed Media: Timber, steel, copper, wire, aerated concrete, felt, feathers, hog bristle, rubber, tin, MDF, paper, tree fronds, 215 x 200 x 100cm,
$8,800.

Fascination with the intangible concept of 'spirit' started young.  Sensing the plurality of spirit in both individuals and community, drove my curiosity to understand how it can be created and represented.

The material and cultural environment, influences our values and outlook. Sociologically, we are attracted to those with whom we share intangible similarities, yet the value is often in the differences, broadening our horizons.

In this piece, I have created a spirit group from similar materials, yet they are substantially different in form and aesthetic.  A group having greater visual weight and impact when clustered together, however, able to stand apart.  Not dependent on each other, yet when together, they 'sing in harmony'.

Some reflect scars and experience of age, some the effervescence of youth, some the simplicity of strength and solidity, some the complexity of the material 'gene' pool used in their making.  Some grounded and earth hugging, some enjoying a dance. 

Totemic relationships here, represent affiliation.  A tribe or clan has totems that are emblematic, often singular.  This piece is a spiritual gathering of totems.  Consequentially, there is a breadth of outlook and greater awareness. 

The range of diverse materials used in the creation of this spirit gathering was intentional.  Mechanical parts and cables reflect the influence of industry, concrete forms the built environment, mutable metals the value of longevity and spark, fronds and barks reflect the skeletons and skins of life.  Raw timbers, some turned and dressed .....a metaphor for transformation.

Hog bristle, a 'fetish' from the living world, while felts and fabrics...makings of home and comfort.

The materials palette also references the history of Chippendale, as garden estate, hive of industry, home of pigs and people for many, many years.   It is fitting that the spirit of this creative precinct transforms and thrives in micro and macroscale aesthetic recreation.

Chippendale Creative Precinct - Chippendale New World Art Finalist 2014

Years ago I read a quote by Marcel Proust which I put on the wall of my studio...

"The journey of discovery consists not in seeing new lands but in having new eyes."  

My art concepts work with themes of being constrained, boxed, confined in some way. I am mostly outside of myself, looking in at the box I have chosen to live in. I am both the observer and the observed. However, if I can recognize constraints I can also hope to remove them.

The concept of moving up and out of the familiar territory, gathering the strength to open my eyes and look deeper and more clearly represents Utopia, being in a transitional stage of life professionally and personally. My piece represents both the past, the box being left, and the future, a new world, Utopia, to which I have not even opened my eyes as yet....

The materials I chose to represent the concept, have special significance for me. The found wooden case represents the old, strong, but rigid, worn and battered 'box' I have been living in. While this 'box' has been strong and supported and grounded me over many years it now becomes the platform or plinth for the new era, from which I can emerge. By using plaster casts, I have represented myself in fragmented parts still, but...a tentative and nascent being, emerging, developing as an artist......springing upward into a different, and for me, Utopic realm.

The figure emerges literally from her grass roots. The sky is infinite and represents removal of the limits I have placed on myself. it is time to leave the box, enter a new world, change my perspective and project myself into a different future.

On the other side, the viewer will find themselves standing in my Utopia, an art gallery, when viewing this piece.

When I read the brief for the Chippendale New World Art Prize, I couldn't stop thinking about the concept. It triggered my creative juices with a delicious challenge and I was hooked. I am dedicating more of my creative energies to making art, as my active creativity has been applied to commercial briefs prior to this period.

I am in a stage of life of both personal and professional change. Creating this piece had strong significance as the brief reflected what I felt about opening to an unknown future where art is becoming central to my existence......my Utopia. 

2016. Timber.