The research involved in the artworks represented here by Patricia Lois Nuss investigate the artistic processes motivated by personal history, but focus on the role, affect, and history of various female idols represented in art, religion, and modern American popular media. An alienated relationship with a mother figure in her own life as well as an over saturation of these idols in the media has led Nuss to these photographic studies.
Nuss makes artwork that investigates the comparative territories of human emotion as it relates to the many facets of culture. In her photographic research, she seeks to procure an intimacy with the women she photographs and to dissect the female idols presence and power within the cultures from which she hails.
The photographic diptychs represented in the series Dipole are a combination of captured ethereal moments focusing on objects and feelings of a place. The places are actually focused on small details, often obscured by fog, which is actually the artists' breath on the lens, giving the impression of being caught in human memory.
Dipole is a set of equal and opposite energies separated by a distance.
The series Mourning focuses on a Venus figure. This series documented aspiring models in the nightgowns they slept in, shortly after they woke at sunrise, in landscapes near their homes. Memories of Nuss' own mother in her nightwear was a revelation in this series. While photographing this series, the artist submits her-self to a praise-like stance and allows the natural discrepancies of the changing morning light to affect the image. The models are asked to procure an intimacy with the photographer and in consequence with the viewer. An honest intimacy with models is rarely a focus in the images we see of them in the media, and hence can create a notion of voyeurism for the viewer.
Slave with Lace; Dipole
Venus Near Shore, Mourning Series
Rape in Versailles; Dipole
Venus Standing, Mourning Series