Interview with the artist Frances Willoughby
Frances Willoughby is a young artist from Bristol. Her artistic research dwells on the home and domestic environments through an intimist and personal gaze that finds ample correspondence in the work of feminist artists of the 1970s and 1990s. The artist's multi-disciplinary approach gives rise to disturbing sculptures that stimulate the viewer to dwell on the message attached to these works.
Q-What is the message behind your works? I saw that you express yourself through various techniques, from sculpture to collage, photography and even sewing, right? Which one do you prefer and why?
A-I really like going from one tool to another, but I always end up coming back to textiles and sewing. I used to make a lot of my own clothes and I always sewed dolls and things like that. So I always end up going back to a textile and fabric element and I like that there's a link to traditional women's craft and I like to be able to subvert that. So it's not just like I'm making clothes or something for the home, it's like something a little bit monstrous or weird, so there's that sort of enchantment that I really like.
Q-How do you reflect the concept of the woman's home in your work? Because it is a very particular aspect of your artistic research.
A-Yes. I have... I've always struggled, I had a dollhouse as a child, like many people. And yes, I always liked the control of having your own room or these kind of miniatures and being able to have them displayed or become a kind of set design. And then, when I was at university, I discovered this long line of female artists who have... Yes, there is a very large area for women and the home in art. So I wanted to do something of my own. Something of my own, but about the history of the women's home. Yes. And in particular... And in particular I was going back to these pieces of work during or wanting to do pieces of work around the women's house during the lockdown and I was feeling very, yes, but very confined and... Yeah. And I think at that point I didn't want to work anymore and it made me think about the fact that home can be a refuge, a place of comfort and escape from the world. But it can also be a cage, yes. Whether it's COVID, isolation or otherwise, domestic abuse or a whole bunch of other things, home can mean different things to different people at different times. So yes, that's why I have to focus on that aspect.
Q-I have a curiosity: is this your personal house or a regular dollhouse?
A-It is a dollhouse that was given to me as a gift. So it's not like it's not a representation of my house. But it's just that I had it for a while and I wanted to do something with it. So I have this house and I didn't have it, it's almost like I had it in pictures and I didn't really know what to do with it, but I felt like I had to keep it. And often the reason I've changed materials and things is that I like to play with the approach. So I had one of these legs that I made and I thought, 'Oh, this is interesting. It fits in the garage or the door. And it did. And then, in a way, it was like finding the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and making them fit together. And then it became a kind of weird spider hat, which looked like Laurie Simmons again. It kind of looked like that. He's about to run off, just like that.
Q-Yes, it's very interesting your contribution in this theme, it was surprising to see that even today some artists like you work in this way. Your sculpture speaks feel the feeling. To feel the home not only as a sheltering environment to protect oneself, but also as a place we want to escape, to run away from. I want to ask you: what is the message behind your pieces? These two legs coming out to the cupboards, what to represent to you? The the same message to to the women house or different?
A-Yeah, I guess it it it's sort of stemming from the same thing. So that that was that was my flap that was taken in and again it was I had the yeah legs and I was sort of what I knew. I wanted to take pictures of them emerging from things and I know I wanted it to be in my home because I thought it would be rather than just like a representation of the home. I wanted it. Yeah this is where I live and yeah and I guess I was meant to be doing chores that day. I was a bit frustrated because often women end up doing the bulk of the the cleaning and the house like look you know childcare look you know and then keeping things running and I was kind of putting washing up away and I just thought no I want to take some some pictures.I want to do something with this. So that was just a sort of bit of experimentation and and I guess but sort of domestic, domestic chores and and yeah, there's the link to the the like the images you showed about with the the cabinets with like Claude Khan and and yeah. So again it's that I like to take these things as inspiration but kind of also do my own thing with it. But I like that having those links.
Q-This photograph series that captured my attention t reminds me Joseph Cornell's Memories Boxes, it is right?
A-Yeah, it's really interesting seeing those side by side. So I'm a really, I'm a fan of Joseph, his book, but it's interesting seeing them laid out like that because yeah, I'm like seeing links there myself. I hadn't had those necessarily in mind when I was doing photographs. But yeah, that is really, that is really interesting.
Q-It's sort of assemblages: there are three different subject that where you focus your attention. The shells, the heads Dolls, and the hands who coming in the the space. What is the message you want to give in these photographs with these photographs.
A-So I was watching a lot of kind of old science fiction films and I knew I wanted to do something on a smaller scale. Again, very much viewing it kind of a bit like a sort of stage set. And it was really fun being able to take pictures because I could experiment quite quickly. So there was one with like all the bubbles. And I just thought, oh wait, I was, I watched the oh, what's the film called, The Invasion of the Body Statues. And in that the the original.They've got a really great use of special effects a lot of bubbles and it kind of and I I I've watched this film, I thought I'd really like to do something something with bubbles and this and doing something dramatic with the lighting. So it was like something something's about to happen. I wanted to create images that were kind of forensic and also what I loved with playing with the camera last year is that again you can experiment with scale. So something could be miniature and then you could blow this picture up and then suddenly it's it is like the size of a room. So and with the hands. I was thinking about from Alice in Wonderland and when she's in the the rabbit's house and she she eats eats something and then grows and the hands and everything she's like sort of emerging from this house. So I kind of I had that in mind and yeah. And I wanted it to become the other hand it's all sort of Mon monstrous and huge so so yeah that's kind of what I was where I was going with that Oh and there's shells. I was thinking of kind of like Dora Mars photographs like I had I had this box of shells and I thought, I want, I like them being on the.I kept using this chequered floor, which I kept, and then I used a bigger sort of version of it, almost a bit like like chess pieces or like pieces of the game. But then like like an Alice in Wonderland, like they've sort of turned into something else, like suddenly their shells. That's like a research of contact with the nature.
Q-I saw in the other your artworks that you love so much, the sea. Right? So the shells, the bubbles… In the this type is your personal research to the contact with the nature. As Niki de Saint Phalle did. The spectators follow you in to some specific environments the living room, the the dining room, dining room, and in your last artwork in the bedroom. Many early female artist who worked on the on this thematic before, it's very interesting that there is a continuous dialogue between these these two different. In your opinion is changed the role of the women in the house from 70s to now?
A-I think the role of women like it's it's changing. Yeah. At the heart, like I guess it's changing quite slowly and I I know I've talked about lockdown a couple of times, but I think it was interesting seeing statistics over that time that the basically women were picking up the slack at home. Women were having to struggle doing you know, working full time jobs and child doing, doing childcare. And I think it's very easy to slip just back into sort of traditional roles. And it isn't like that for everyone. But yeah, it's just so often it is the case that women very much have to care for like, yeah, the, the domestic, the domestic space and kind of keep things going. I think it's, it's changing, it's changing, but slowly. And that's why I think all these, yeah, the the historic sort of examples of the work, it's still relevant because. Because, yeah, it's still that things are still, they're changing. Just changing so slowly. I think. So, yeah, still relevant I think.
Q- I'm agree with you. And half a century is not much time to to have an evident changement in society. But we hope together that early we can see it. I have another question to to this for for this piece of art. Is this a house you used to use before for the photographs or or another dollhouse and another?
A-No this. So. So each of the houses, they're all different. So this one, I was looking for something that was sort of particularly square just because I was doing the projections in them. So yeah that's different to the the dolls house with the legs and the dolls house that I took the the the photographs in. I've got up a bit of a collection of dolls houses.
Q-Last great question for you. Do you define yourself a feminist artist or not? What do you think about feminist movement?
A-Yeah, I I think that like, my work undoubtedly has links to feminism and I would describe myself as a feminist. But it's it's tricky because so many of like the feminist movement there's all these different strands of it. So it's like there's a sort of there's an umbrella of yeah and and and I guess you have to be careful kind of like like I guess almost to to define what that is to you. And I I believe my work is draws on feminism. Feminism and and is is I guess feminist art. But you know I I believe that women should have equal rights and I believe in equality.