Looking Out at the View
The Refinery ArtSpace, Whakatū Nelson. 20 January – 22 February 2020.
So, I say to the psychiatrist, sometimes I feel I'm a mouse.
And the psychiatrist asks, what do you mean when you say that you feel you're a mouse?
Doesn't everyone know what you mean when you say that you feel like a mouse? You know, quiet like a mouse, I say.
The way the psychiatrist is looking at me — I'm sure he's considering a diagnosis of clinical lycanthropy, a rare condition involving the delusion that one can transform into an animal. I prefer therianthropy, which is the purely mythological ability of humans to metamorphose into other animals.
I laugh and say, not a mouse. What I mean is that sometimes I find it difficult to speak.
Looking Out at the View is a rule-based series about my propensity to adopt the identity of famous artists, objects and creatures. It is built from rearranged found text, my biography, and photographs taken of me as a child. The work includes the photographer (who writes) and the poet (who photographs). It is a photo album of sorts: portraits and self-portraits in an eternal present.
Gallery view of Catherine Russ's exhibition looking out at the view of the artist's mother sitting in a chair.
Gallery view of looking out at the view - black and white photograph of people outside.
Black and white photo of two children and a man outside - from Catherine Russ's exhibition Looking out at the View.
Gallery view of Catherine Russ's exhibition Looking out at the Vies - a donkey in a field with hills in the background.
From Looking out at the View - a black and white photo of a sheep and a barbed wire fence.
Black and white photo of a deer behind a fence from Looking out at the View.
Black and white photo of farm machinery and people from Looking out at the View.
Gallery view of Catherine Russ's exhibition Looking out at the View.
Gallery view of Catherine Russ's exhibition Looking out at the View.
