Naked Witch: An Autobiography

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The density of the black and white lettering and discrepancies between line widths, combined with the overall scale of the piece which exceeds human height, suggests a relationship between the image of the nude and the artist or viewer’s body. We will process the personal data you have supplied to communicate with you in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Banner is best known for her ‘wordscapes’, highly subjective written accounts that often retell entire Hollywood feature films or sequences of events. The first nude performance, at the Port Eliot Literacy Festival in 2006, was an experiment in front of an audience between the model and the artist.

These 'wordscapes' define the shapes and forms of the body as well as fleeting moments such as the tension in a second of shared eye contact, or a nervous finger tapping. Banner says 'I liked the idea of comparing the athlete to a superhero, with some extraordinary prosthetic gift. The tapestry was a propaganda triumph, which influences the way history depicts the invasion to this day. This developed out of works she made using pornographic films, such as Arsewoman in Wonderland 2002, and the desire to investigate what the body can communicate outside of any narrative context.But then the very way we look at all art, the way we treat artworks, the way we present them, is itself erotic.

Acknowledging the absence of a major movie depicting the battle, Banner draws out the brutality in a language learnt from the visceral manipulations of a contemporary war film. Quoted in ‘Art Stripped Bare – Fiona Banner on the Nude’, The Guardian Online, Wednesday 8 April 2009, accessed 27 May 2012.In this exhibition the artist looks at how we mythologize history, and our willingness to be seduced by those myths. It serves as a reminder that true artistry knows no limits or inhibitions – it is meant to provoke thought and push boundaries. All publications registered with an ISBN must be deposited in the Legal Deposit Office of The British Library, yet the singularity of Banner’s project makes this impossible.

Fiona Allison’s has over a million followers and is best known for her sexy exotic photos and videos. This picture immortalizes not only her audacious spirit but also represents a pivotal moment in cinematic history when nudity became more accepted as an art form rather than mere titillation. She recently turned her attention to the idea of the classic, art-historical nude, observing a life model and transcribing the pose and form in a similar vein to her earlier transcription of films. Fiona Banner’s practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, performance and publishing.

She has explained, ‘I thought it would be interesting to strip off all the narrative and the mediation of the film image, and just look at the figure. Banner has commented, ‘I liked the idea of comparing the athlete to a superhero, with some extraordinary prosthetic gift.

Strikingly naked atop her majestic steed, she commands attention from all who pass by Great Windmill Street, just opposite the legendary Windmill Theatre. In response to requests from the Legal Deposit Office The Vanity Press produced a comprehensive bound catalogue of the ISBN artworks and the data information forms used to register them. She has also said: ‘The performances expose these layers of voyeurism – my voyeurism looking at the model, and the audience’s voyeurism looking at me making the art, and looking at the model. With both approaches Banner transcribes the object of her looking in a manner which in part resembles the processes that would be used for traditional figurative drawing, but with an end result in written rather than pictorial form. The way in which the text is laid out, written in staggered blocks which increase in width as they progress down the painting, reinforces a strong sculptural presence in the work.In this iconic image, we witness the fearless Fiona Richmond, renowned actress and symbol of liberation, fearlessly horse riding through London's bustling West End. Collecting is a recurrent theme in Banner’s work, and she has compiled this collection over a period of twenty years.