Naked ambition

Wheelchair user artfully confronts issue of disability and sexuality
Chris Arnot
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 1 2004 01.05 BST
The Guardian, Wednesday September 1 2004

Lisa Gunn has swum in warm, salty water in a hydrotherapy pool in Oswestry, Shropshire, and in the Indian Ocean, off the Maldives. On the

whole, she preferred the Indian Ocean.

It was the first time she had been upright since a road accident in 1997 confined her to a wheelchair for life, at the age of 21. "I had an

overwhelming sense of freedom and exhilaration," she says. "For a short time, I was dependent on nobody and nothing else. No carer, no floats,

no apparatus, no wheelchair, no crutches."

No clothes either. She left them on the shoreline with the carer, the wheelchair, etc, and swam naked in front of a camera, which a scuba diver

had positioned for her on the sea bed. The resulting images have been blown up to 7ft x 5ft, and put on show at the Herbert Art Gallery in

Coventry.

It's not the first time that Gunn, now 24, has used her body to confront the issue of disability and sexuality. Last year, at the same venue, she

exhibited equally large-scale self-portraits of herself stark naked in a wheelchair.

Between exhibitions, she has graduated with a first-class honours degree in fine art from Coventry University and been offered the chance to

study for a masters at the Royal College of Art in London.

"My work," she says, "has become about society's perception of the female form. I used to stand over 6ft tall and, when I walked into a room,

everybody noticed me."

She even worked briefly as a catwalk model to help fund her studies. However, once she was unable to stand, let alone walk or parade, she felt

ignored or patronised.

"One fellow student," she recalls, "put his hand on my shoulder and said: 'If you weren't in a wheelchair, you'd really be quite attractive.' This

work is a reaction to the anger I felt at the time. I've turned it into positive energy. I wanted to say that I still have my femininity and I'm not just

a set of wheels."

Would she have posed naked before her spinal injury? "It's not something that I'd have thought of doing," she admits. "I felt a little uneasy at

first, but not any more. My body has become a metaphor. The watery reflections upon it are a reflection of me.

"Until they read the statement alongside the exhibition, people don't know that the body they're looking at is disabled. I'm not trying to mislead

them; I'm simply trying to get them to accept me as I am."

Suspension of Disbelief, by Lisa Gunn, is at the Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry, until October 10.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/sep/01/guardiansocietysupplement1

 

Artist Challenges Notions Of Disability

And Sexuality


By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
September 7, 2004

COVENTRY, ENGLAND--"If you weren't in a wheelchair, you'd really be

quite attractive."

Those words, spoken by a fellow student at Coventry University, burned

into the memory of Lisa Gunn.

It also fueled the passion of the fine art honors graduate to explore

society's perception of the female body.

For the next four weeks, the Herbert Art Gallery will exhibit "Suspension

of Disbelief", a series of Gunn's underwater self-portraits.

According to the museum's website, the 7-foot by 5-foot nude images show

the "grace of her body enhanced by the rippling patterns created by water

in both light and shadow."

"This work is a reaction to the anger I felt at the time," Gunn told the

Guardian of the student's comments. "I've turned it into positive energy."

"I wanted to say that I still have my femininity and I'm not just a set of

wheels."

Last year, Gunn, 29, exhibited large-scale portraits of herself sitting naked

in her wheelchair.

"Until they read the statement alongside the exhibition, people don't know

that the body they're looking at is disabled," she explained. "I'm not trying

to mislead them; I'm simply trying to get them to accept me as I am."

Related:
"Naked ambition" (The Guardian)
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1294152,00.html


"Suspension of Disbelief" (Herbert Art Gallery & Museum)
http://www.coventrymuseum.org.uk/exhibitions.htm#suspension

 

http://www.inclusiondaily.com/archives/04/09/07/090704ukartsex.htm

 

Link to Coventry Open Exhibition:

http://www.britevents.com/event.asp?title=suspension%20of%20disbelief&event=2582