Dimensions: 20cm x 15cm x 15cm
Date of the work: 2019-2023
Medium: Plexiglass
Exhibition history: Prestorjha (2023)
Before completing Fjur, Tabone created a hand-held version of the central shape within that structure. These initial explorations led to the creation of Fjur, and the earlier study was set aside in her Salford studio. She mentioned these works on Twitter, attracting the attention of BBC 6 Music presenter Mary Anne Hobbs who described it as “beautiful” on her 27 November 2019 morning radio show.
By staring intently at the central shape within this object, the oval structure intrinsic to this and other vulvic objects reveals itself. Bringing the oval form into the frame, Tabone devised a way for the original structure to be held as if in mid-air, by employing transparent plexiglass to develop what is also an ocular object. In terms of pure form, seeing the world through vulvic eyes is a manner of describing a softer side of the female gaze, even if that has taken on different connotations through its male counterpart within our lifetime.
In Ħares Tabone offers a combination of a number of her signature elements all layered together loosely and in a most non-forceful way. Firstly there’s the use of transparent plexiglass, of course. Next is the use of the oval shape, in more ways than one. These material aspects of the work make for a spectral object, which can only really be seen when light hits it in particular ways. The oval shape of the human eye is inferred through the title, which invites gazing through an imperative title: ħares, the Maltese word for the command “look”. As with several other works by Tabone, the title has more than one meaning. Ħares is also a Maltese word for ghost or, perhaps more precisely, spectre.
This work therefore harks back to the combination of aspects of hauntology and fragmentology proposed in the previous work – Framment – offering a spectral way to hold a fragment of work towards the creation of complex narratives that evidently hold more than what potentially meets the eye at first glance. Behold what is not obviously there and you are bound to grasp more than what others see just by looking casually at this work of art.
