The Arcane Rituals of Riisa Gundesen
Gundesen, Riisa, Facemask Selfie Zoloft (2022) (left) , Facemask Selfie with Cryo Nask and Undereye Gel (2023) (middle), Facemask Selfie with toothwhitening Gels (2023) (right). Photographed by Darren Pottie.
Paintings of ragged sheet masks, festering wounds, and cheap toiletries are scattered around the gallery walls at the Ottawa School of Art downtown campus. From August 31 to October 2nd Edmonton-based artist Riisa Gundesen is exhibiting her most recent exhibition Toilettes. Focusing on the performance of femininity, mental health and anxiety, the exhibition features self-portraits situated amongst used bathroom paraphernalia, draped 3-dimensionally over the gallery walls and floors. The assumed safety of the bathroom space takes on an intimate uneasiness that provokes the viewer into a jarring discomfort. With swirling menstrual blood in the toilet and disembodied faces swallowing medication, this is not an exhibition for the squeamish.
Gundesen, Riisa, Self-Portrait with Undereye and Gel Mask (2021). Photographed by Darren Pottie.
But perhaps it’s the uncomfort that brings me in, a fascination of what the artist is willing to show of herself. Immediately to the right as you enter the gallery, a small self-portrait leans into a bathroom mirror. Under-eye gel patches and a cucumber eye mask rest on the figure’s forehead. It is one of the few self-portraits that don’t confront the viewer through a direct gaze but instead invites them to get dangerously close. Akin perhaps, to falling down the rabbit hole of innermost thoughts. The work doesn’t seem to be created to shock and awe, despite an initial glance into the subject matter, but rather a peeling back of a Band-Aid of the mind; an entrance into memories mired in anxiety.
Scattered experiences and disjointed moments are accentuated by the cut out style of the paintings that drape along the floor and that crawl in pieces along the wall. One work is cut in half while another contains a third hand, but is missing a thigh. In many works, open wounds are expressed in heavily textured splattered paint, an allusion to the artist’s experience of obsessive skin picking and anxiety attacks. Many of the works are missing eyes, mouths and noses. With waxy skin and sickly yellow and green splotches, the self-portraits almost feel zombified.The body has become the site in which mental illness is mapped, an outward expression of internal discomfort.
Gundesen, Riisa, Self-Portrait with Peel-Off Facemask and Shower Cap (2022) (bottom-left), Altarpiece (2023) (top-left), Self-Portrait with Workout Tights and Cucumber Masks (2023) (middle), Self-Portrait in Bike Shorts (2020) (right). Photographed by Darren Pottie.
On the back wall of the gallery, three monumental cut out paintings of discarded sheet masks hang ghostlike and flat. Their eyes and nose are cut from their faces while medication fills their mouth. The masks can’t seem to talk, listen or even see properly. But they remain steadfast in their large presence. The painting effect applied to the masks have the same wrinkled look as shed skin, a discarded image of oneself. In one image, part of the self-portrait is obscured by a sheet mask, overtaking an attempt to apply lipstick. Gundesen’s figure hides behind this discarded sense of self. They are masks in the sense that they are characters of someone that is no longer needed. In fact one has the resemblance of a batman-like superhero, with a dark-eared half-face mask. A costume in the arcane rituals of ‘self-care’ and a panacea for desirability.
But not without hope. Each of the figures seems to be trying to treat these outward symptoms with bathroom toiletries marketed as self-care. I remember once, being deeply, unequivocally sad for myself and for my foster child in a situation out of my control. During this time, my loved ones told me to practice self-care, and so I googled the best ways to practice it. One Sunday evening I bought a clay mask and lit a woodland scented candle, and waited for the recommended time on the package. I remember looking in the mirror with that deep pit of dark sadness heavy in my stomach, asking how on earth this mud was supposed to help. I looked like a fool, and felt taken advantage of by mass marketing. I can’t imagine the extra pressure, if I was a woman, to beautify my appearance despite my intense emotions.
Gundesen, Riisa, Facemask Selfie with Cryo Nask and Undereye Gel (2023) (left corner), Facemask Selfie with toothwhitening Gels (2023) (top-middle), Toilette (2020) (bottom-middle), Self-Portrait with Cryo Mask and Lingerie (2022) (right). Photographed by Darren Pottie.
I find a sense of longing in the exhibition. If I engage in these rituals, the artist seems to ask, will that make me more palatable to the rest of the world? If I can just apply a few more cryo masks, perhaps I’ll be accepted and widely loved. If I can just flush down all the gory bits about myself, perhaps I can emerge again. While most of the exhibition comes from a place of deep intimacy and vulnerability, there is a collective conversation that swirls around the exhibition regarding general aging and death. Zombies, ghosts and ghouls terrify me. But there is nothing scarier than the mirror’s gaze, which counts us down our numbered days.
With conversations about bathroom politics continuously popping up in lawmaker’s dockets, I find it interesting to return to bathroom anxieties that aren’t based on bigoted hate. Gundesen seems to be reminding us of all of the underlying issues in contemporary culture that existed in the bathroom before the unfounded assumption of predatory behavior. I find it remarkable that such a small space in our homes can house such a myriad of emotions. I remember it being a place of self-discovery, I found my first pubic hair there, I watched bruises heal, and I found my first few lines across my face in this space. These things should all be celebratory, but are somehow also related to shame and the hard truth of getting older and becoming a new person, at least visually.
One of the works is a sheet mask over the artist’s mouth, with red lips open. Reminiscent perhaps of Joyce Weiland’s well known print ‘Oh Canada’ created in 1970, in which the artist pressed her lipstick covered lips to the paper singing the Canadian National Anthem. The audience isn’t given the anthem these lips are expelling. But I imagine it voices a similar tension between the societal pressures of feminine performance, individual expression, and the challenges of living in Canada.
Gundesen, Riisa, Facemask Selfie with Cryo Nask and Undereye Gel (2023). Photographed by Darren Pottie.
Through scattered cut out paintings depicting self-portraits, bathroom paraphernalia and discarded sheet masks, Riisa Gundesen maps out mental illness, drawing the audience into her personal narrative. She critiques notions of self-care and feminine beauty products that act only as a distraction from the messy overworked anxieties in her mind. And she brings forward notions of ageing, death, and the constant changes our bodies experience. Additionally, the added societal pressures of feminine expectations, particularly in attitude and beauty, is made clear here. It is a visually jarring exhibition, one in which I can recognize myself through shared shame.
Gundesen, Riisa, Self-Portrait with Peel-Off Facemask and Shower Cap (2022). Photographed by Darren Pottie.
Written by Darren Pottie.