Artist Statement

Have you ever looked in the mirror and disliked almost everything looking back at you?

Do you ever go out and feel invisible and lack confidence?

Well fear no more because I, Jess Seal, have the solution!!!

I am a performance artist who looks closely at confidence and I almost always answer YES to the questions above.

I use my work in order to explore who I am by creating performances that will test my confidence.

My work is humorous, colourful and above all FUN. I use music along with bright lights and photography in order to explore who I am and allow audience members to explore themselves. My work deals with serious issues about confidence but is always positive. My performance aims for every audience member to leave with at least an inch more confidence. Not only this but I can guarantee you WILL leave with a smile. 

Project Description

Trio of Desserts (name not confirmed) is a three-part performance that looks closely into body image, using the idea of the male gaze.

The male gaze deals with gender power drawing close reference to media. What we are presented with in many films and music videos comes from male desires of the perfect female image. Women are shown in a sexualised way in order to adhere to what males want to see. They are always the object of the gaze rather than the owner.

For example lots of music videos today show women in an over sexualised way wearing little amounts of clothes and doing provocative dance moves. This sexualisation has resulted in many women today feeling insuperior. Plenty of women spend large amounts of time wishing they looked like the girls on screen and no wonder when beauty campaigns promise ‘celebrity results’. But, what I have learnt to realise over time is that looking like these girls is impossible. We can never become the women in the music videos or films because these women don’t actually exist. They are airbrushed, they have fashion designers, they have hairdressers etc.

My performance aims to address this sexualisation and turn it on its head by contradicting the idea of the perfect body image. I want women to understand these perfect body images we see on the screen aren’t real and as a result to all start to try and feel comfortable with who we are.

Each part of my performance uses different theatrical conventions but together holds a strong message.

The performance will get more colourful and musical as it goes on and as a result will reach a dramatic and effective climax.

The first part of the performance includes issues around weight and looks into the ‘perfect’ body weight, if one does exist.  Audience members will have to deal with issues around their weight and have to watch other audience members do the same.

The second part of the performance uses a performative style lecture to introduce my key issues to the audience. The audience will observe a documented version of a previous research performance I have undertaken. They will see through photography and the duration of the performance the personal struggles I went through and what I learnt throughout. This will result in the audience getting to know who I am and help them relate to the issues in the piece.

This performative lecture aims to do this by engaging with the key issues in a fun and vibrant way. I will be using upbeat songs from different musicals, care free bedroom dancing and perhaps some audience participation for them too to feel care free and fun.

The final part of the performance is the most dramatic, contradictory and colourful. In this part of the performance you will see the climax to the whole piece. You will see an; overdone, sparkly costumed, high heeled, sexualised women on stage. Using the idea of musical theatre you will hear a song from ‘Guys and Dolls’, and see this sexualised female figure perform, whilst stripping back to her natural form. As she strips back you should see the performance improving, thus showing how make up and over the top clothes can only give you confidence to a certain extent.

We have to be happy with who we are!

As the audience get to know ‘who I am’ in the second part of the performance, this final contradictory image of song and ‘strip back’ will help the audience see the journey I have been through and then relate the message to themselves and their own confidence issues.

Case Studies

Hannah Wilke

I am extremely interested in the work of Hannah Wilke and have researched into her performance style in order to help me create my work.

Hannah Wilke is a performance artist who looks at her own image as a starting point for her work. When creating performance she establishes herself as the artist and the subject.

Wilke is highly interested in photography. Throughout her process she uses her body, along with photography in order to document her ideas and performances. Not only this but Wilke explains that the use of photography is another way for the audience to examine her body.

Wilke’s use of photography interests me and links directly to my work. Throughout my research process I have used Wilke’s idea of photography to document some of my work. I believe photography helps audience members understand what I am exploring in a much clearer way. Not only this but I am going to adapt Wilke’s idea of photography and use it in my final performance. This will show not only the research I have done throughout, but I believe, will help me frame my performance and allow audience members to examine my body, similar to Wilke.

Wilke’s photography makes her look vulnerable and as a result helps address her exploration to the audience. I have used this idea of vulnerability in my photography and also in my own performance so I too can make a clear message to the audience.

Wilke has created many different performances throughout her time using her body as a starting point but a few have really stood out to me. One of her pieces (performed in 1975) is called ‘Hello Boys’. This was a twelve-minute production where she was seen naked behind a large fish tank as ‘she performed the repertoire of studied erotic gestures along side rock music’[1]. Wilke has explained that this performance questions the idea of sexual power and powerlessness and she describes herself as both subject and object throughout. Wilke explores female sexuality and the male gaze and this links very specifically with my own work. I am exploring the female body along with not only the male gaze, but also at how females ‘gaze’. I aim to challenge the idea of the perfect body just as Wilke challenges female sexuality.

‘Through the Large Glass’ is one of Wilke’s most successful performances and also my favourite. In this piece she performs a striptease behind ‘Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare’ by Her Bachelors, Even. In Wilke’s performance she dresses as a 1970’s fashion icon, she does a series of poses then strips in a monotone deadpan way. When performing this strip she is seen ‘through the large glass of the Duchamp’s sculpture’[2].

Throughout this performance Wilke ‘uses her own image and sexuality to confront the erotic representation of women in art history and popular culture’[3]. As we can see, Wilke’s work links directly to my own. She confronts the representation of women using music and this is what I aim to do. Wilke uses a piece of music and does something with it that is contradictory. I have used this idea to create part of my performance and believe the contradictory image along with the song will be a great way in getting my message across to the audience.

Tehching Hsieh

Another artist I have drawn close reference to is Tehching Hsieh. Although Hsieh’s work does not link as directly to my own as Wilke’s, some of his ideas have helped me frame my performance.

Tehching Hsieh is a performance artist who ‘makes art and life simultaneous’[4]. A lot of his performances are durational (usually lasting a year or longer) and take a lot of dedication and belief to keep them up. One of his performances I found most interesting took place from 1978 to 1979 in which he locked himself in solitary confinement. He did not have any contact with the outside world, no paper, no radio, no television etc. The only contact he had was from his friend Cheng Wei Kuong who ‘facilitated the piece by taking charge of his food, clothing and refuse’[5] Hsieh’s durational work has helped me create one of my research projects called Plain Jane. Plain Jane was a performance where I did not wear any make up or figure hugging clothes for a week. I used Hsieh’s idea of art and life as simultaneous and realised I couldn’t have just done this experiment for a day. In order for the research to be effective the performance would have to become part of my life, and this is what I did.

Although he doesn’t explain this directly Hsieh’s work has a great deal to do with succeeding. Hsieh had to have sheer determination in order to fulfill these yearlong tasks and this too links with my Plain Jane performance. Before starting the performance of Plain Jane I was extremely determined and ‘knew’ I would be able to do it. However this was not the case. During my performance of Plain Jane there were at least two times where I failed to follow the exact guidelines. I did not realise the dedication and determination I would need in order to complete this. Hsieh finished many, if not all, of his yearlong performances, his success along with my failure has helped me understand what I want to show to the audience in a clearer way. I was not as dedicated to the performance as I should have been because I did not fully believe in what I was doing, unlike Hseih in his performances.

Although his initial experiments are different from mine I have used the idea behind them in order to research my own believes and come up with some strong results.

When participating in ‘Plain Jane’ I originally wanted it to be for research. However, after looking into the work of Tehching Hsieh I have come to realise these durational experiments can be the performance themselves. Hsieh’s yearlong experiments were the performance and I am going to use this idea and incorporate what I did during ‘Plain Jane’ into my performance.

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[1] http://www.eai.org/title.htm?id=1149 [accessed 2^nd March]

[2] http://www.eai.org/title.htm?id=1787 [accessed 2^nd March]

[3] http://www.eai.org/title.htm?id=1787 [accessed 2^nd March]

[4] http://www.tehchinghsieh.com/ [accessed 3^rd March]

[5] http://www.tehchinghsieh.com/ [accessed 3^rd March]

Scratch 2 - Performance Ideas

After doing my first scratch I have realised I need to frame my work and answer a few questions in order for my message to come across in a clear way to the audience.

I have decided to call my performance 'Trio of Desserts'

As a result I am going to add the past three experiments I have done and fit them together into one bigger performance. As of yet I am struggling to decide how to link the three together but am hoping that my scratch helps me do this.

Part 1 = Why Wait?

When the audience come into the theatre they will be presented with a weighing scales. Each audience member will have to weigh themselves and be asked to shout out their weight. Shouting out their weight is not compulsory but I am going to ask them and see if they do so. The reason for this is so the audience members are already thinking about weight and body issues even before the performance has begun.

Part 2 = Take Back Your Mink

I am then going to do my performance of take back your mink turning the idea that wearing make up and a snazzy costume will make you confident on its head by being a better performer when I am in my comfortable clothes without make up on.

Part 3 = Plain Jane

I will then end the performance with more of a documentary lecture on my Plain Jane performance showing others how it made me feel living for a week without make up or doing my hair. 

I am hoping that adding these three things together will help frame my performance idea and give the audience some context.

Scratch Number 1 Final Ideas

Hannah Wilke's performance 'Through the looking glass' (which is discussed below) has been one of my main influences in creating my final idea.
I am going to use the idea of music and do something over that music that is contradictory.

As a result I have decided that I am going to perform the song 'Take Back Your Mink' from Guys and Dolls. First of all I will start with an exceptionally large amount of makeup on, including a wig and extremely fancy over the top costume. I am going to start performing the song in a very dead pan way for about 30 seconds. I will then pause the music and pretend I have gone wrong and ask to start again. As I do this I will take off some of my make up or take off some of my outfit then press play on the song again. As more of the make up and costume comes of my performance will get better and better until the very end where I will have not make up on and be in a nude leotard and the performance will be fun and enthusiastic. This will hopefully show that the more natural and true to yourself you are then the better you will perform. Not just perform on stage but also in life.

Hannah Wilke

Hannah Wilke is a performance artist who looks at her own image as a starting point for her work. As a result she has become a big influence in creating my own performance.

Wilke was highly influenced by photography using it to document her performances and her ideas and as a result established herself as the artist and the subject of her work. This links to my performance of PLAIN JANE that is documented below. I too used photography in order to document my work and help others relate to it. 

Wilke's photography work makes her look very vulnerable and maybe I could work on the vulnerability more in my photos. 

One of Wilke's performances was called 'Hello Boys' which she performed in 1975. This was a 12 minute production where she was seen naked behind a large glass fish tank performing a repertoire of studied erotic gestures along side rock music. She is described as both subject and object, questioning the idea of sexual power and powerlessness. Wilke explores female sexuality and the male gaze. (Both of these which I have explored below)

Wilke used her body as a means of asserting a specifically female iconography. Her work was explored through; posturing, posing and gesture.

'Through the large glass' is one of Wilke's most successful performances. In this piece she performed a deadpan striptease behind Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. (This song seems to be the start of a musical and seems is three men talking about a 'blushing bride'. The music is very upbeat and in the video we see the bride slowly taking off her wedding dress in different layers with her underskirt etc. At the end of the song we learn that she is in fact posing for a magazine) In Wilke's performance she dresses as a 1970's fashion icon and does some poses, then she strips. She uses her own image and sexuality to confront the erotic representation of women in art history and popular culture. 

This performance is extremely interesting to me because she confronts the erotic representation of women, and this is what I want to do. She also uses music in her performance linking with my interest of musical theatre. 

What seems to stand out most prominently to me is that she uses a piece of music and does something over the top of it that contradicts the song. This helps get the message across. She picks an idea and turns it on its head and this is what I want to do.

Scratch Performance Number 1

Ideas for scratch performance due on 5th March:

• Provide the audience with mirrors
• Sit the audience in the round
• Performance happens in the middle
• Ask the audience to look at themselves in the mirror for quite a long period of time, almost too long
• Ask the audience to shout out the one thing they dislike about what they see
• Ask them to shout it out again even louder
• Ask the audience to shout out the one thing they like about what they see
• Ask them to shout it out again 

I am still unsure what I am going to do with this small idea but I want the audience to feel as though they can relate to my performance and focus on the things they like and dislike about themselves when they look in the mirror. My aim is to make them see that the bad things aren't really that bad.

• Shout out what I dislike about what I see
• Shout out what I like about what I see -People don't like to acknowledge what they like about themselves because they think they are being big headed. But really they are accepting what they have been given and enjoying it.
• Come on stage with a fancy yet revealing costume on, lots of make up, hair all done up ready to perform.
• Start performing the performance, 'Take Back Your Mink' from the musical "Guys and Dolls".
• Unsure as of yet how I am going to perform it. Is it going to be over the top? I know I want to dance but I don't know about the singing part.
• When the instrumental of the song comes on start taking off my outfit
• Left in a nude, skin tight catsuit so everyone can see my figure
• Tie my hair up
• Take of my make up in front of everyone and stand there with the music on and stood as a 'natural' figure.

I want people to question how they view women in film and also women to question how they portray themselves. I want people to do things for themselves and not for others.

Plain Jane

As my next experiment I am going to delve further into the idea of the male gaze. I want to create an experiment where I explore if we try and make the perfect body for ourselves or if it is for others (especially males).

As a result I am going to create an experiment which will start on the 14th February and last for a full week. Throughout this experiment I am going to try and become as plain as possible. As a result I am not going to wear any make up, I am not going to wash my hair, I am only going to wear plain, baggy clothes. Essentially, I am going to stop doing anything to myself that makes me look better than what I do.
I am going to be taking video footage throughout the week and taking photos of how I look each day. As a result I am hoping to get a concrete performance idea from my findings.

I am going to look at peoples reactions to me and see how I feel doing this process. I think what is most interesting is that the experiment is going to begin on Valentines day, which is the one day I would want to feel as beautiful as possible. I think this will give me the most interesting results.


Here is my first picture which is the day before my experiment. I wanted to take this to see what I looked like when I have my hair straightened and some make up on. Here, I feel quite comfortable about how I look and feel comfortable in my own skin. We will see how the next few days go.

Day 1

So its the first day of my experiment and so far it isn't too bad It is Valentines Day so I haven't washed my hair and left it to go natural. I have kept it straight from yesterday. The first thing I thought today when I had to start the experiment was relief. I really liked that I didn't have to think about what I was going to wear. I just put some baggy plain clothes on. I also liked that it took me all of 5 minutes to get ready for Uni this morning. Although I didn't feel attractive I didn't mind it that much. I think that was because I sometimes come to Uni looking like this so it wasn't too against my social norms. On the walk to Uni I began thinking to myself, 'what is it that I do for myself and what is it that I do for others?' For example, I wear make up because it makes me feel better but the only reason it makes me feel better is because I think other people will think I look nice. If I am going to be staying in all day I won't put make up on. And the same goes for clothes, I wear clothes that I think look nice on my figure because it makes me feel good but the only reason it makes me feel good is because other people will think I look nice. There is a fine line between what we do for ourselves and what we do for others and I can't quite answer that yet.

Later on I am going out for a meal with my friends. I think this is where my experiment will really start to kick in and make me feel certain things and I am going to document that after it happens. One thing I find my self questioning is the clothes. Do I wear certain clothes to make myself feel good for others or is it that we have to wear a certain style for common curtsy. I am going to go to this restaurant in a hoody, trainers and baggy jeans and see if this gives me an answer. I think doing these things with people that are dressing up and wearing make up will provoke my feelings even more.

Here are some of the pictures from my day so far.

My Outfit

No make up and unbrushed hair

Throughout the first day of my experiment I didn't feel too bad until I went out for dinner with my friends. I started to feel a bit self conscious at what I looked like and further more did not feel very comfortable. As a result I was quite quiet and the dinner table and also left early. It really made me feel bad. I then went to meet my boyfriend for Valentines Day. I got home to get ready and I had an extra shower (because I thought it would make me feel better) I then put some tighter jeans on and a plain long sleeved top. I then looked in the mirror and felt awful. As a result I put on some tinted moisturiser and some mascara which made me feel a little bit better. I felt bad that I caved in but I couldn't cope feeling horrible on Valentines Day. On the way to my boyfriends house I saw my friends. They noticed instantly that I had a little bit of make up on which I thought was interesting.

Once I got to my boyfriends house and relaxed I didn't mind that I didn't look as dolled up as I usually would and just enjoyed myself.

Day 2

I played netball today so turned up in my kit with no make up on and my hair tied up. This wasn't that unusual for me and didn't bother me too much. However when I met my team mates one person stroked my face and said I looked like a 'baby face'. I found myself constantly explaining to everyone why I didn't have make up on because I felt so uncomfortable.

When I got back from netball me and all my friends went out. We go out every Wednesday to the Union for the sports night. I am the social secretary of the netball club and so have to run a weekly session full of girls. Yesterday was extremely intimidating for me, having everyone look at me throughout the night. I started the evening telling them all why I wasn't wearing make up and no-one really said anything after that. When I went to the toilet and saw myself in the mirror my confidence fell so I just went back upstairs and tried to enjoy the night. I ended up leaving a lot earlier than everyone else that night because I didn't feel very comfortable. No-one said anything to me except one of my male friends as I was leaving. He asked me why my hair was so frizzy tonight. It made me feel rubbish and I just wanted to go home. Although I felt self conscious doing the no make up thing it wasn't a constant thing always on my mind and maybe this is something to think about.

My overall emotions for this day was pretty low.

Day 3

Today I haven't really been doing much and so have been in the house wearing tracksuit bottoms and a big t shirt. However, my friends have gone out and I decided I didn't want to go because I couldn't deal with another night where I felt uncomfortable and had to explain myself for how I looked.

Day 4

So far today I have been in Uni all day and I am really starting to hate this experiment. I keep seeing myself in the mirror and think how horrible I look. It's not so much that I look ugly but more that I feel I look scruffy and people will look at me and think I don't really care what I look like. This experiment was to help me see that it doesn't matter what people think but the more I do it the more I get self conscious. I have just looked in the mirror in the Library toilets and see that my face looks unclean. I have extremely dry lips and dry skin around my nose and an eye lash half way down my face. The dry lips are because of the no make up thing. Because I have stopped wearing make up I have forgotten to take me Vaseline out with me and now my lips are dry and stinging a lot. I am feeling extremely negative about the experiment. I thought I would get some ideas out of it and all in all I don't really have anything. I'm just hoping something comes out of the experiment because I don't want it to be a waste of time.

Day 5

Today has been an interesting day for me. I am a volunteer at the olympics this year and this morning I had my first day of training. This morning when I woke up at 7.15 I looked in the mirror and saw how tired and pale I looked and so I decided to put a bit of make up on. One reason was because I didn't want to go to the event looking scruffy when I had to meet my new colleagues for the summer and another reason was because I knew it would help me with my confidence. Throughout this experiment I have noticed that my confidence has been very low. I find myself sitting quietly listening to conversations and not really wanting to get involved. I knew this experiment would affect me quite predominantly but I did not think it would affect me in the way it has done. I began thinking this morning when I was getting ready that me not wearing make up was always going to make me feel uncomfortable. Wearing make up and doing your hair enhances your assets and so when you don't wear these things you're bound not to feel as good. I never really thought about it like that before until today and it has started to become a bit more clear to me. I realised girls should wear make up and girls and boys should do their hair, they should wear nice clothes but this should be done in order to make YOURSELF feel good. As long as we do these things to make ourselves feel good then we're ok. When we think of how females are portrayed in films this is for other peoples pleasure and has rubbed off on people in the real world. People shouldn't do things to impress others but should only be happy with themselves. It has really amazed me how wearing make up and nice clothes etc fills me with a lot more confidence. I only wish every female could do my experiment to see what it feels like and realise the reaction they get from others is no different but the way YOU feel is. This has made me realise it is all about ME.

 I didn't wear too much make up but just a little to make me feel as though I looked smart and presentable.