Jeanine Woollard takes classic images and historical paintings and places herself within them, often nude, reimagining the scenes and the role of women. With her first UK solo show, Chateau La Pompe, at the Vegas Gallery, we figured it was time for a chat.

 
Your work is full of female figures, but very few male. Are you celebrating the tradition of the female nude, or is this a critical, feminist dialogue you are trying to create?

In my earlier work there are plenty of men! But with this work, it's only natural that I am the subject of the work, since it's my adventure, in my context. Obviously the works also evoke the historical female nude.

knight of the flowers

How do you approach the documentation of your installations? Is the final piece simply a photograph or is that just a necessary means of preserving the work?

When the work features a subject, be that me or others, it has been necessary to take a photograph of that moment, because it can't last for long. I also make sculpture that exists on it own terms and doesn't need documentation. I like to play with both.

 

Auto de Fait
Many of the installation shots on your website appear to have been taken in a studio. Do you feel more at home creating installations outside of gallery spaces?

The work I have just made is very much about the studio so it had to be shot there, but I will always bend to what the work requires. So if it's in the studio that's fine or in another space, that's fine also.

on the rocks
Do you feel that make art because 'you have something to say'? If so, what?

I make art because I enjoy making it.

let me go lover

 

See more of her work at www.jeaninewoollard.com

Jeanine Woollard's Chateau La Pompe exhibition runs at Vegas Gallery until 14 June. Visit www.vegasgallery.co.uk for more info