‘(…) in Kerry Filer’s “The second pack of cards”, the suits on a pack of playing cards are replaced by objects of beauty from the natural world along with diagrams from Victorian medical journals and elements of the female physique and attributes of femininity. The pack of cards implies a game (a game of chance perhaps), and works as an ironic yardstick by which prescribed beauty can be measured.’

[LESS]
‘(…) in Kerry Filer’s “The second pack of cards”, the suits on a pack of playing cards are replaced by objects of beauty from the natural world along with diagrams from Victorian medical journals and elements of the female physique and attributes of femininity. The pack of cards implies a game (a game of chance perhaps), and works as an ironic yardstick by which prescribed beauty can be measured.’

‘This second deck follows an earlier set of cards based on the character of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. Images of madwomen, objects from the natural world, medical diagrams and symbolically loaded, yet seemingly innocent, pictures of flowers are brought together to illustrate our contemporary reading of the Victorian construction of notions of femininity, beauty and sexuality. This construction relied on established formulae canonized through the masculine realms of natural history, psychiatry, medicine and painting. The cultural image of femininity was styled according to the expectations of these sciences, and this second pack of cards suggests that similar codes govern the appearance and behaviour of late Twentieth century women. Images of glamour, fashion and beauty still prescribe the acceptable face, dress, shape and gestures of femininity. Perhaps it is not such a long way from the cultural construction of Woman in the 1990s, to the stylized expressions and poses of Charcot’s Nineteenth century patients at the Salpetrière.’

[LESS]
‘This second deck follows an earlier set of cards based on the character of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. Images of madwomen, objects from the natural world, medical diagrams and symbolically loaded, yet seemingly innocent, pictures of flowers are brought together to illustrate our contemporary reading of the Victorian construction of notions of femininity, beauty and sexuality. This construction relied on established formulae canonized through the masculine realms of natural history, psychiatry, medicine and painting. The cultural image of femininity was styled according to the expectations of these sciences, and this second pack of cards suggests that similar codes govern the appearance and behaviour of late Twentieth century women. Images of glamour, fashion and beauty still prescribe the acceptable face, dress, shape and gestures of femininity. Perhaps it is not such a long way from the cultural construction of Woman in the 1990s, to the stylized expressions and poses of Charcot’s Nineteenth century patients at the Salpetrière.’