Francesca Woodman is featured in girls, girls, girls, curated by Simone Rocha at Lismore Castle Arts

A major group exhibition (2 April–30 October 2022) curated by the celebrated Irish fashion designer, Simone Rocha, and featuring artists including Louise Bourgeois, Dorothy Cross, Genieve Figgis, Roni Horn, Cindy Sherman, Alina Szapocznikow, and Francesca Woodman.

Simone Rocha writes:

“I wanted to invite a group of artists who inspire, challenge and engage with femininity and its subversive characteristics, reflecting a female viewpoint today. There is a contrast of forms and media – art, sculpture and photography – and I am interested in exploring how the works engage with each other. This engagement could be read in multiple ways: as a thread of the natural world running through the works, uncanny self-portraiture or the sense of a haunting reality lingering just below the surface.

I want the exhibition to be an exploration of femininity in an honest way by having the presence of each artist in the room together, with their multiple viewpoints, and bringing their works into conversation with each other. As a designer, artists and image-makers have been a long-standing source of inspiration to me. I am drawn to explorations of worlds not seen and the act of looking from another’s point of view; to having one foot in reality but to also be exploring the internal narrative of the artist. I respond to work that documents but also transports the viewer to another place.

The female spirit and experience has been a strong focus of my work from the beginning. My engagement with femininity must also always have a balance - traditional craft techniques versus masculine tailoring, natural forms vs man-made. I am always pushing to make something traditionally feminine in a modern, off-kilter world”.

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Image: Francesca Woodman, Self-portrait talking to Vince, Providence Rhode Island, 1977