Overstepping, By Juilie Rrap

Juilie Rrap (b. 1950) is an Australian contemporary artist who is mostly known for her involvement with body art, performance and digitally based works. Rrap grew up in the town of Lismore, New South Wales. Her brother being Mike Parr, who also is well-known for his performance art and printmaking. During the 70’s, Rrap became involved with body art as well as performance which became the main influence, then expanded and evolved with time. Slowly she began experimenting with photography, painting, sculpture and video in an on-going projects concerned with representations of the body. Rrap often plays with the distinction between the authentic and the simulated, the real and the unreal, the truth and the fake.

Overstepping (2001)
Julie Rrap’s work Overstepping (2001) is a digital print of a pair of feet with a photoshopped flesh coloured heel to represent stiletto heeled shoes. The artists foot and the fleshed stiletto heel fuse into one, where the limitations of the physical body are transcended through the digital manipulation. The realistically of the feet indicate that they belong to human female. Rrap uses advertising cropping of the image and glossy and full colour surface in this work.
This piece speaks strongly about the female body and how we manipulate and fragmentise the interests of aesthetics as well as the burden that is created through these transformations.
This is recognised through the sense of style as well as a sense of exquisite pain. Rrap’s piece references Rene Magritte’s painting ‘Philosophy in the Boudior (1947) as she uses suggested female bodily imprints on items of clothing, being a women’s dress and a pair of heeled shoes. Magritte uses an irrational juxtaposition to overthrow the viewers security about reality whilst questioning their concept of the real, by revealing how easily experiences can be constructed. This outcome is also achieved in Rrap’s work Overstepping
(2001)

Rise and Fall (1994)
Rrap’s installations rise and fall (1994) is a useful comparison with overstepping. This installation focuses on a central monitor with the video of a man's feet trying to stand on ballet en pointe. As this monitor rotates it creates a pattern of movement in a series of micro switches which make the pink ballet shoes on the surrounding plinths rise and fall. The failure of the pair of male feet to match the female pose presents a humorous critique of stereotypes and power relationships between males and females. The title suggests power through the rise and fall of a particularly male-dominated history.

Julie Rrap (Australian)is an artist who has been actively involved in the critique of what dictates the approach to female sensibility. She has explored whether it is socially or biologically determined and how traditional art practice has influenced ideas. Primarily a photographer, Rrap’s early work of mixed media, has moved to installations and large series of self-portrait images in religious or historically significant poses.

Julie Rrap’s artworks are often predominantly concerned with the representation of the figure. (specifically the female figure). She explores ideas of feminism and gender roles in our western society whilst actively criticising what dictates female sensibility. Rrap discusses the role of historical art conventions that have played in these ideals through a series of works using negative impressions of the body. Confronting her viewers both directly and indirectly.