The IMA is pleased to present film installation Nellie (2013) by artist Fiona Tan. Nellie takes its point of departure from the imagined life of a forgotten woman, Cornelia van Rijn, who was the daughter of the famed seventeenth century painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. At the age of 15 she emigrated to Batavia, present day Jakarta.
Tan works within the contested territory of representation: how we represent ourselves and the mechanisms that determine how we interpret the representation of others. Photography and film – made by herself, by others, or a combination of both – are her mediums; research, classification and the archive, her strategies. Her skillfully crafted, moving and intensely human works, expanded film and video installations, explore history and time and our place within them.
Thanks to Frith Street Gallery, London, and Wako Works of Art, Tokyo.
Biography
Fiona Tan works within the contested territory of representation: how we represent ourselves and the mechanisms that determine how we interpret the representation of others. Photography and film – made by herself, by others, or a combination of both – are her mediums; research, classification and the archive, her strategies. Her skillfully crafted, moving and intensely human works, expanded film and video installations, explore history and time and our place within them.
Image: Fiona Tan, Nellie (2013), film still.