Artist spotlight: Esther David-Deleplanque
About the artist:
When it comes to art, Esther values context and development both in her own work and others. Being able to visualise and understand the development, creation and thought process behind a piece makes her able connect with it and appreciate it more as an artist herself. This contextualisation is apparent in her Art and Design A level show; all of the pieces show a development of Esther’s ideas and skills, creating a more comprehensive view of it all together. These pieces can be seen throughout this article.
About the art:
Esther’s art is heavily influenced by George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1985”. The themes she focuses on in particular are surveillance, voyeurism and the sexualisation of the female body. Esther is fascinated by Orwell’s interpretation of surveillance due to its avant-garde characteristics at the time of his writing and as a result is captivated by his creative genius.
The use of embroidery in these pieces represent a very feminine skill, therefore exploring ideas surrounding the female and identity. The eye also links ideas of voyeurism and sexualisation towards the female.
Therefore, Esther explored the idea of voyeurism and the tendency to oversexualise the female body, concepts which are embedded in our social media-focused society with the use of Instagram and Facebook in particular. In this way, what Esther tries to put across in her pieces is the idea of the audience as the ‘voyeurs’ both through her art but more broadly through social media and the act of surveillance.
This is an example where Esther excludes the head therefore representing all female bodies and purposefully dehumanising the body. This gives more of a focus on the female body, turning the audience into voyeurs themselves.
The wallpaper background symbolises domesticity and the home, provoking ideas of intrusion of personal space.
Overall, Esther’s focal points are the female and identity. Looking at these themes through George Orwell’s dystopian novel, she ties them to a critical view of surveillance and more broadly, of social media.
Currently, Esther is enjoying her MA in Art History at the University of St Andrews and hopes to spend some of her summer with UAL in London, completing a couple of courses in fashion designing and curating. Stay tuned to see what Esther creates next!
