Eldi Dundee

For the POST Artists ‘Constructing Spaces: Live Art’ programme, Eldi presented a work in progress entitled ‘Make Up / Un Make Up’.


‘Make Up / Un Make Up (I & II)’ 2012

Eldi performed two versions of a work in progress developed for the ‘Constructing Spaces: Live Art’ programme. The first saw Eldi performing via a two-way mirror in the gallery’s toilets, the mundane ritual of making up her face. Visitors to the toilets will be privy (excuse the pun) to her everyday cosmetic ritual, or can opt to voyeuristically espy her gestures from the privacy of the obscured glass inside the observatory, where a version of a similar ritual played out simultaneously on the television screen. The second version was performed at the café bar, where Eldi gazed "as if in a mirror", at the video of her own 'Make Up / Un Make Up' performance, touching her face in response to what the recorded version of herself was doing. She then applied make-up onto 'her face' on the television screen, which when switched off at the end of the performance, displayed a painted self portrait in its own right.

Issues of the male gaze and the female's adoption of it in relation to herself, the labourious artifice of natural-looking makeup, the hiding/exposure of one's true face, the women's relationship with her own face, especially as it develops throughout the aging process, the ego ideal, and the designation of everyday life as "art" are silently touched upon.