Pageant Roll, 2012
16mm transfer to HD, 9´10", courtesy the artist and Gaudel de Stampa, Paris.
Presented by WhiteChapel Gallery, London, England.
Commissioned by dOCUMENTA(13), Pageant Roll (2012) can allude to both early British Modernism’s preoccupation with the power of landscape and ancient mysticism, and to a feline presence. Geometric objects such as hula hoops bent into ellipses and squares in the form of monochrome paintings are placed in the landscape whilst shots of Cornish standing stones are collaged with painted eggs in milk. Warboys’ distinctive visual language and use of sound are woven together to create psychological spaces. In Pageant Roll, this sense is heightened by an intermittent and ethereal soundtrack as the film loop plays forwards and backwards, creating the illusion of a circular narrative.
Jessica Warboys (b. 1977, Newport, Wales) works across different media including film, painting, sound and performance which function both independently and together as installations. The starting point for many of Warboys’ works is often a historical figure or place. In the past these have ranged from the medieval poet Marie de France and the little-known dancer Héléne Vanel, who was associated with the Surrealists, to the Forest of Fontainebleau in France and East London’s Victoria Park. These become tangible spaces to project and animate the unexpected.