Following on her mid-career retrospective at Otis Gallery in 1997-1998, curated by Anne Ayres, and receiving the prestigious COLA Fellowship in 2000, the Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to present Carole Caroompas’ most recent series -
Heathcliff and the Femme Fatale go on Tour.
Continuing her on-going investigation of the narrative psychologies of Western literature and their implication on the sexes and their respective relationship; Caroompas presents us with a bright, colorful cosmos that encompasses gothic 19th century literature, the sexually libidinous 1960’s and American film noir from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Using excessive decoration and colliding images from high and low culture, Caroompas forms a visual stew that is visually tantalizing and poisonously effective, moreover, delicious.
In this new series, The Femme Fatale is the exotic and dangerous sexual presence - dangerous to herself and to the object of her attention. She is a purposeful outsider, unable and unwilling to capitulate to the proscribed domestic position.
Heathcliff is the historical orphan-man, whose position as a man in the world belies that he has no connections to it. Heathcliff - the proverbial rock star - has privilege but is troubled, and joins with The Femme Fatale for a journey (the tour) in which the spotlight and the vagaries of the outside world heighten their mutual need for desire, but which will also fuel the potential consequences of destruction. Ultimately, the bohemian/outlaw roles of the protagonists tell of the search for individual power and liberation. Sexuality and desire fuel their journey in a search for a connection internally, and with each other.