In Coming Attractions (2017–19) Tara Marynowsky ‘defaces’ the female leads of nineties cinema. By scratching and hand colouring cinema trailers to create a humorous feminist response to the snowballing backdrop of Trump era politics, the Harvey Weinstein takedown and the subsequent #metoo movement.
The videos the artist has ‘defaced’ are four mainstream hits of the decade, Pretty Woman (1990), Indecent Proposal (1993), Species (1995) and Shakespeare in Love (1998).
The laborious process of ‘drawing’ with a knife onto the frames of a 35mm reel is a sustained and violent act that, when scanned and played back, passes by like a frenzied animation. Marynowsky’s series owes as much to the artful avant-garde work of Stan Brakhage as it does the ‘guilty pleasures’ of mass appeal Hollywood cinema.
Coming Attractions 2017–19
4-channel video installation, colour, sound, 9 minutes 20 seconds. (looped)
Courtesy the artist and Chalk Horse, Sydney
Tara Marynowsky
Born 1979, Sydney. Lives and works Sydney
This work was commissioned by Carriageworks and presented as part of The National: New Australian Art 2019, curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham.
Find more online works on the Carriageworks Journal.