Pam Kleemann ::: Photographer / Conceptual Artist, Melbourne Australia

7 images: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7

Cut Me
Mixed Media – ceramic plate stand, acrylic food cover, liquid emulsion photograph, tablecloth, haberdashery trim, laser-cut acrylic lettering.

Exhibited:
Surface Residue (group exhibition), Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia 2006
Are YOU Being Served, ANCA Gallery, Canberra, Australia, 2007

Devour Me
Mixed Media – ceramic plate stand, acrylic food cover, laser print on cotton, tablecloth, haberdashery trims, laser-cut acrylic lettering.

Exhibited:
Surface Residue (group exhibition), Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia 2006
Are YOU Being Served, ANCA Gallery, Canberra, Australia, 2007

Drink Me – MarTiTis
Mixed Media – rubber breast balls, tablecloth, martini glasses, silicone baby bottle teats, stainless steel tray.

Exhibited:
Are YOU Being Served, ANCA Gallery, Canberra, Australia, 2007
Window Frames Sydney Road Brunswick Association Exhibition, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2009 Winner, Sculpture Prize (shared).

Drink Me – MarTiTis
Mixed Media – rubber breast balls, tablecloth, martini glasses, silicone baby bottle teats, stainless steel tray.

Eat Me - ProTiTeroles
Mixed Media – ceramic & porcelain plate stands, tablecloth, tulle, rubber breast balls, haberdashery trims, leather thong, metal clips, chocolate cups, meringue cases, stainless steel scalpel.

Exhibited:
Are YOU Being Served, ANCA Gallery, Canberra, Australia, 2007
Window Frames Sydney Road Brunswick Association Exhibition, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2009

Bite Me – Cup Cake
Mixed Media – rubber breast ball, haberdashery trims, cups, pearlescent beads, cotton doily.

Breast Plates

Breast Plates evolved out of Kleemann's personal experience with Breast Cancer in 2005, and her interest in the military language used to describe the many forms of cancer.

"A breastplate is a piece of armour that covers the chest or breast area, for protection during battle. Like the post-surgery bras I wore. Cancer is spoken of as a battle, won or lost. A body battle. There's a war going on. A malignant invasion. A malevolent infiltration. The battle lines are drawn, the trenches dug, the evil rooted out with surgical precision. Shock and awe. I, and the landscape of my breast, have been forever changed."

Prominent Yale surgeon and medical historian Sherwin B Nuland, MD acknowledges that of all the diseases surgeons treat, cancer is the one that they have specifically named 'The Enemy' and the central structure of the cancer cell is known as 'the evil-eye nucleus'. He refers to breast cancer as the evil invader of women’s bodies and visualises cancer cells as "behaving like the members of a barbarian horde run amok – leaderless and undirected, but with a single-minded purpose: to plunder everything within reach."¹ His language is considered 'apocalyptic' by author Sally Cline.²

Susan Sontag notes that "disease is seen as an invasion of alien organisms, to which the body responds with its own military operations, such as the mobilising of immunological 'defences'".³ The language of chemotherapy and radiotherapy focuses on killer aggression – chemical and nuclear warfare that bombards, zaps, annihilates. Sontag argues that the abuse of military metaphors and euphemisms, common practice in medical situations, prevents patients from thinking clearly about their disease.

Kleemann has dedicated this work to the memory of three maverick women - British Photographers Jo Spence and Helen Chadwick, and American Writer Audre Lorde, 'one-breasted proud black activist'.⁴

1. Cline, Sally Lifting The Taboo. Women, Death and Dying, Little, Brown and Company, Great Britain, 1995, pp. 201, 202.
2. Ibid p. 202.
3. Ibid p. 202. Quoted from Sontag, Susan Aids and its Metaphors, Allen Lane The Penguin Press, London, 1989, p. 9.
4. Ibid p. 205, 218.