Siomha Harrington Irish, b. 1997
A SIGHT, 2025
oil on canvas
70 x 90 cm
Further images
‘A SIGHT’ (2025) depicts a woman in a latex suit, sitting by herself in a theatre. While being the only member of the audience, she is not watching; instead, the...
‘A SIGHT’ (2025) depicts a woman in a latex suit, sitting by herself in a theatre. While being the only member of the audience, she is not watching; instead, the subject covers her eyes as she is lit by a spotlight and gazed upon by the viewer, almost as if she belongs on the stage. ‘A SIGHT’ is a direct reference to John Berger’s 1972 ‘Ways of Seeing’, a seminal work that examines how we view art. Berger states: “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”