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of a wound, most commonly through the use of stitches. In anatomical terms, a suture or sutura can refer to the rigid or strong holding joints in the skeletal framework–for example the hinge points in one’s ankles or knees–as well as a seam or join in the skull where divisions in the bone surface have become ontogenetically fused together.371 _{In this respect I have thought about my}

material process in generating this work to be about making and procuring parts, which rather than divided or dissected from a singular source, are individually built in succession from the ground up, prefacing the agency of part over whole; a type of body without organs.

Curator Michael Hawker has drawn attention to a similar prefacing of part over whole in the works of Sally Smart, whose act of dismantling “challenges the idea of the wholeness and unity of the human subject.” 372 _{In the recent Contemporary Australia: Women exhibition at}

Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2012) Smart presented a new commissioned series of works titled Artist Dolls (fig. 70). Through this collection of sculptural assemblages Smart has extended on her wall-based works, like The Anatomy Lesson (fig. 46) discussed in chapter 2, to create a series on haphazardly suspended marionettes. The dolls embody a joining of disparate fragments – found objects, cardboard cylinders, treated fabric and paper cut images are brought together to create a grouping of delicate, yet fractured, bodily totems. Smart becomes the surgeon in Artist Dolls through the act of hinging together and joining disparate parts. Suspended from the ceiling and left to twist and turn ominously, this theatre of the constructed body employs dramatic lighting, thereby creating an ominous shadow-play that flits between abstraction and figuration.

In Patterns for Penance the surfaces of each empty cotton spool has been re-covered in intricate thread patterns, the depth of each line and shifting thickness in colour recall systems of

measurement and the comparative nature of the fragment or similar objects in multiple. In the execution of this work, a significant part of my intention was to propose alternate grounds and surrogate objects implicit of an unfamiliar ceremonial or ritual act. In Artaud’s vivid

characterisation of the Theatre of Cruelty, he describes “objects of unknown form and purpose” being present in the space.373 _{In a way, the abacus-like structures assembled in Patterns for} Penance read as ambiguous and evolving totemic forms. Where Smart’s Artist Dolls are to be

watched and observed, the modular structures of Patterns for Penance are not passive objects but potentially active props; they rest, lean and await enactment in the gallery space. Artaud was adamant that the theatre that aimed to affect the whole anatomy “must first break theatre’s subjugation to the text and rediscover the idea of a kind of unique language somewhere between gesture and thought”.374

371 _{The surgical suture has a vast number of manifestations dependent on the type of join and the stitch required. See} Wilson, SIr Erasmus. A System of Human Anatomy: General and Special. Edited by Paul Beck Goddard. American ed. Philedelphia Lea & Blanchard 1843; Franklin, E. C. The Science and Art of Surgery: Embracing Minor and Operative

Surgery. St. Louis: Missouri Democrat Job & Printing Establishment, 1867. For a discussion on the connections between

the surgical suture and the tailor’s stitch see Velpeau, Alf A. L. M. New Elements of Operative Surgery. Washington: Duff Green, 1835.

372 _{Hawker, Michael. A cast of dancers. Contemporary Australia: Women. (Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern} Art. 2012), 129.

373 _{Op. cit. Artaud. 76} 374 _{Ibid. 68}

Kate Scardifield, Patterns for penance 2012. Adaptable assemblage for a potential action. (Installation view). Oak dowel, pine, acrylic paint, hand-coiled thread spools, cotton thread. Dimensions variable. Photograph: Dara Gill. Figure 68.

Kate Scardifield, Patterns for penance 2012. Adaptable assemblage for a potential action. (Installation detail). Oak dowel, pine, acrylic paint, hand-coiled thread spools, cotton thread Dimensions variable. Photograph: Dara Gill. Figure 69.

Sally Smart, Artist Dolls 2011-12. Installation view, Contemporary Australia: Women, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane.

Image courtesy the artist. Figure 70.

A significant aspect of my studio enquiry has been an investigation into the theatrical implications of the art object. Thinking about Artaud’s proposition for a unique language located between gesture and thought has lead me to examine the possibility for art objects to occupy a point of interconnectivity between perception and experience. At the point of their encounter with the work, the viewer has the ability to enact their own physical interventions, and through these metaphorical incisions into matter and its reconfiguration a new site or space can be imagined. The rearrangement of objects or interactions with theatrical props are a reminder of Barad’s claim that “momentum is meaningful only as a material arrangement involving a specific set of

moveable parts.”375 _{Elizabeth Grosz’s consideration of corporeal phenomenology has been}

informative with regards to developing speculative works that simulate a theatrical site in which the viewer or audience can make their own altering cuts. Grosz responds to Merleau-Ponty’s idea that the body does not simply occupy space; rather it ‘inhabits or haunts space.’ She asserts,

It is as an embodied subject that the subject occupies a perspective on objects. Its perspective represents the position within space where it locates itself. Its perspective dictates that its modes of access to objects are always partial or fragmentary, interacting with objects but never grasping or possessing them in their independent and complete materiality.376

There is a sense here of an obscured view, something this thesis has come to acknowledge in relation to the inability to ever truly see one’s own body interior. As previously examined, it is something that can be negotiated via a visual system that doubles and reflects, one based on representation and trace.

Untitled (Shrine Work) (fig. 71) is an assemblage of objects that intends to provoke a potential

action or obliquely entice a performative gesture. The work consists of three parts – a staff-like pole; a painted platform and an aureole. Brought together, these objects intend to simulate an unfamiliar consecrated site and suggest a hallowed space. The iconographic signifiers at play evoke an awareness that this assemblage of objects represents an oblique theistic site. When I began making this work I was thinking a lot about the anatomy theatre in the context of a

hallowed or sacred space, but also as a site of spectacle and performativity. The ritualised practice of dissection occurring in theatre was indeed an act of theatre: the gesture of cutting the body was performed as part of a predetermined ceremony in which the corpse assumed its role centre stage.

In 2011, as part of the International Artists Residency Program at the Sanskriti Foundation, I undertook a period of studio research and development in India. Whilst on a walking tour through Old Delhi, we entered a dilapidated haveli. Within its central courtyard I came across a bare and empty, yet shrine-like space (fig. 72). In comparison to the rich, colourful and ornate architecture of the Hindi, Jain and Islamic sites of worship throughout the city, this shrine site appeared desolate. I was told that this inconspicuous site was a non-denominational public shrine; anyone could pause and worship at this site regardless of religious affinity or creed. What struck me most