Stitching the Gaze: Meaning and Affect in Caroline McQuarrie’s Swerve

Western art history has long been centred around sign-based readings. In the last few decades, theories of affect and embodiment have begun to challenge this ocularcentrism, bringing the spectator’s body into the equation. This article will focus on New Zealand artist Caroline McQuarrie’s (1975-) se...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ish Doney
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidad de Los Andes 2020-01-01
Series:Hart
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/doi/full/10.25025/hart06.2020.06
Description
Summary:Western art history has long been centred around sign-based readings. In the last few decades, theories of affect and embodiment have begun to challenge this ocularcentrism, bringing the spectator’s body into the equation. This article will focus on New Zealand artist Caroline McQuarrie’s (1975-) series Swerve (2009), in which McQuarrie altered vernacular photographs taken from her own family albums by stitching directly into the photographic paper, creating an interplay of thread, paper, and image. I will undertake a close reading of this work, informed by theories of family photography, craft, and affect and embodiment in other mediums, in order to investigate how these objects might be understood by reading both for meaning and for feeling.
ISSN:2539-2263
2590-9126