<p><strong>Fiona Pardington</strong><br />
<em>Heartsick</em> 1994<br />
<span style="line-height: 1.6em;">From <em>Medical Suite</em> 1994&ndash;1999</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 1.6em;">Courtesy Starkwhite, Auckland</span></p>

Fiona Pardington
Heartsick 1994
From Medical Suite 1994–1999
Courtesy Starkwhite, Auckland

Artist Fiona Pardington talks about her work Heartsick 1994 (from Medical Suite 1994–1999) which features in the exhibition Fiona Pardington: A Beautiful Hesitation, on show at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki from 5 March – 19 June 2016.

Access more content within the exhibition by downloading the free PingX app from the App Store or Google Play

Audio and transcripts available in English and Mandarin. 

Video available in New Zealand Sign Language.

Heartsick is another favourite of mine in that its such an unusual photograph in that the subject in that the subject is looking right into the camera, her eyes are focussed on the camera you can see that her eyes are focussed and therefore she’s looking directly at you. She has a beatific kind of look on her face so immediately I thought of Catholic photographs and chromolithographs of nuns in states of ecstasy, so it’s Bernini and hysterical nuns fainting with religious fervour which was really just sexual frustration I suppose whipped up into a frenzy – but she had some kind a tumour, I think it was a goitre, which was being palpated by somebody who was outside of the photograph and they have their hands around her neck and their squeezing, and the lump just happened to look like a heart to me, you know not quite like a heart but like a heart just enough for once again for the image to fall into place for me and to make a lot of sense.

心疾是另一件让我非常喜爱的作品。这是一张非常特殊的照片,在照片中的人直直地凝视着相机镜头,换句话说,也就是直直地凝视着观众。她的眼中的神情让人联想到对自己的相信的事物坚定执者,或是在朝圣中达到忘我境界者。照片中的人起初看起来像是济安贝尼尼的雕塑,正被狂热激烈的情感所包围着,但实际上她有着一种疾病,可能是甲状腺肿大。有一位镜头之外的医护人员正在诊测她的病状,那个人用手按住她的脖子,并进行挤压。她脖子上肿大的部分在我看起来就像是心脏的形状。从具象的角度来说这虽然不是心脏的实际再现,但是这因隐隐约约的心形却足够让观看者联想到一些更加深刻的东西。