04: Susan Francis

 

100 Layers

 

A mash up of a number of elements whose juxtaposition hopefully causes the viewer to reflect. On the one hand it follows the frivolous and seemingly shallow You tube footage of a young teenage girl, going through her nail varnish collection, or taking part in the hundred layers of foundation challenge. The backdrop of Dido’s lament however contextualises the work as something more profound, morbidity laced through the everyday, the strange pale face of the young woman suggesting a more unsettling, darker and surreal element. Later in the video, the woman runs to embrace a male figure we can’t see. They say Mary would have been in her early teens when she gave birth to Jesus. Had she been living today, perhaps this would have been her story.

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