Simone Eisler

My installation Allure at QUT Art Museum was first commissioned by Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery in 2013 as part of a series of exhibitions curated by Trudie Liego.  The curator asked artists to create work in responce to a piece of published literature.  I chose the Grimm fairy tale All Kinds of Fur or sometimes translated as Thousandfurs.  This fairytale was the stepping off point for my installation.  My aim was to not literally translate this story into a visual image or story but to intertwine some of the fairy tale's themes with my own artistic concerns. Many of the Grimm fairy tales deal with the idea of transformation and change for a good moral purpose, especially via a journey or the interface of a forest. In All Kinds Of Fur the female protagonist uses natural disguise to transform herself in order to escape incest (‘the unnatural') and then cleverly unravels that disguise to attract and win the Prince. (the so-called normal or natural state of affairs). In my previous installation practice l have explored the transformation of the human into the animal, and located this transformed creature - whether it be a sculptural remnant of an animal, a significant item of clothing such as a cloak made from exoskeleton material, or myself in disguise - in a forest or garden. For me transformation takes place because of the need of creatures and humans to evolve with heightened protective armour in a new harsh post climatic change world. Conversely this armour masks an underlying sexuality heightened by ritual. In my practice as a female artist the words armour and amore come closer together as l play with the dichotomy of protection and attraction. In Allure, l employ the doll in place of the single female protagonist. The doll is a potent symbol of the way in which women are socialized into being the carer/nurturer but also the object of beauty. The dolls in this installation are a splintered representation of the archetypal princess. These dolls are not simply in disguise but transform into positive figures of the forest without specific gender. They may be camouflaged as part of the forest but they are also its protectors and they mask the deeper sensuality and allure of the forest and of nature.