The Fontainebleau Series, 2001
Photography, twelve C-type prints from 5x4 negatives, 100x125cm each
The Fontainebleau Series is based on a well-known anonymous image from the School of Fontainebleau. Held in the collection of the Louvre in Paris, the painting depicts Gabrielle d'Estree and her sister in the bath. Throughout its existence this work has over and again caught people's curiosity and attention and has recurred as reference for artists across generations.
Drawn to the very ambiguity of the gesture as well as to the contrast between the intimacy of the touch and the blankness of the protagonist’s expression, this series of photographs re-stages the situation with four different sets of women. The participants have different types of relationships to each other, which they are asked to articulate across the space of three images.
In each case I ask the two women to first restage the image itself and to then continue to find gestures and moments of touch while remaining constraint within the confines of the bath.