Tanya Mars

Pure Virtue, 1985

© Tanya Mars

Tanya Mars, Pure Virtue, © Tanya Mars
Artist
Tanya Mars
Title
Pure Virtue
Dimensions and medium
Video, colour, sound, 15 min
Artwork description
The video Pure Virtue stems from a trilogy of performances that include two other works, Pure Sin and Pure Nonsense. In each work, Tanya Mars embodies a different character: Queen Elizabeth I, Mae West, and Alice in Wonderland. Dressed in theatrical costumes and in full makeup, Mars delivers a raw and frank dialogue tinged with humour, irony, and sarcasm. In Pure Virtue, she addresses the subject of virginity by using symbolically ambiguous objects like eggs and raisins. Elizabeth I’s character moves through public places—the street and the supermarket—and private areas like the bedroom. Her gestures, which are sometimes caricatured and over-the-top, are a parodic critique of an often overly-stiff theatrical form. The video version of Pure Virtue is straightforward and free of any artifice or special effects. A single structure per vignette provides rhythm to the script despite the absence of a chronological narrative.

See Also

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