HOMME FATALE

2010

Homme Fatale is a mixed-media sculptural work that reconstructs the body as a hybrid humanimal assembly. Incorporating a black bear jaw, human hair, fur, and wax-cast facial elements, the work disrupts conventional representations of masculinity by rendering the male form as vulnerable, and especially vulnerable to romantic delusion—its characteristics are built through affect, rather than presumed innate gender qualities.

Drawing on traditions of taxidermy and figurative display, the sculpture oscillates between artifact and body, as a counter-archetype, where identity is likewise produced through processes of assembly, substitution, and projection. Inverting the trope of the “femme fatale,” Homme Fatale proposes a destabilized masculine subject shaped by forces of myth, desire, and symbolic construction.

Developed in parallel to Alma, the work operates as a counterpart, extending an ongoing investigation into gendered embodiment, hybridity, and the fabrication of lifelike forms.

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Materials: found/mixed media, including black bear jaw, human hair, recycled fur, fabric, beeswax, found mannequin stand

52" x 18" x 13.5"

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The wax cast face and ear used in the sculpture were created by artist, Damien Worth and surrendered to Hunter to work with as part of the Out of Purgatory artist exchange project between Eastern Edge Gallery (NFLD), Peake Street Studios (PEI) and Gallery Connexion (NB). Homme Fatale was featured on the cover of the Out of Purgatory exhibition catalogue, to accompany the exhibitions held at Confederation Centre Art Gallery (PEI), Gallery Connexion (NB) and Eastern Edge Gallery (NFLD). Homme Fatale has also been shown as part of Artefact/Artefiction at the Art Gallery of Guelph (formerly Macdonald Stewart Art Centre), among other sites.