Birds Flying Backwards, 2001

Jo Ellen Van Ouwerkerk

Birds Flying Backwards, 2001

Iris print with archival ink on Somerset Velvet 100% rag paper

22 × 23 3/4 in | 55.9 × 60.3 cm

Edition of 10AP

Signed and numbered in pencil

Pace Editions, Ltd, NYC.

Inspired by Nineteenth Century portrait photography, the works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, the famous renditions of women by John Graham and later Willem de Kooning — as well as the collages of
Joseph Cornell — are all reference points. At times, her compositions even pay homage to specific masterpieces, such as Picasso’s harlequins of the Rose Period. With a convincing original outlook, she employs this eclectic vocabulary to portray her subjects in a manner that is at once timeless and contemporary. Meanwhile, Van Ouwerkerk’s compositions range in complexity.
Forced into the position of a voyeur, the viewer can encounter her women during intimate moments as in Birds Flying Backwards, for example, our gaze seems to be able to penetrate closed doors. We get to study the subject as she finds herself alone and lost in thought. Birds Flying Backwards is based on the 1865 photo of Jane Morris.

Jane Morris was the lover and chief artistic obsession of Pre- Raphaelite artist and poet Gabriel Dante Rossetti. Jo Ellen Van Ouwerkerk has recreated a romantic erotic daydream of birds fluttering on the back of her neck. It was Rossetti who posed his subject in the powerful photo taken by John R. Parsons.