"Self Portrait with Pig Foetus"

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, in graphite, on reverse lower center: Sonia Sheridan 1971

Label

Using technology and her own body to push the boundaries of representation, Sonia Landy Sheridan engaged with issues of gender through experimental art forms. During an artist residency at the 3M corporation in 1970, Sheridan explored the artistic possibilities of the company’s patented Color- In- Color printing technology. To create Self Portrait with Pig Foetus, she sandwiched a Color- In- Color print of her face and a pig fetus between plain paper and Thermo- Fax paper, using a hand iron to apply enough heat to produce an image on the plain paper before burning its edges with a match to create the jagged border. The imagery calls to mind procreation—particularly given that face and fetus are each enclosed within the womb- like shape of the hand iron.

Sheridan created Thermogram: Female Groin Area Body Print by putting grease on her body, then pressing and warming a piece of heat- sensitive paper over it. The rounded and voluptuous curves in this print recall the Venus of Willendorf, a small limestone statuette from around 28,000–25,000 BCE, which is believed to be a fertility figure or totem.

From the 2022 exhibition Embodied: Artist as Medium, curated by Isadora Italia, Campus Engagement Manager

Course History

SART 20/SART 71, Drawing II/III, Oona Gardner, Fall 2021

Exhibition History

Art/Science, University Art Gallery, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, September 17-October 16, 1978, no. 74.

Embodied: Artist as Medium, Isadora Italia, MALS Class of 2022, Sol LeWitt Wall, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 1–December 17, 2022.

The Art of Sonia Landy Sheridan, Owen Robertson Cheatham and Friends Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 10, 2009-January 3, 2010.

Publication History

Sonia Landy Sheridan, Patterns in the Flow, 2005, no page number; Sonia Landy Sheridan, Biography & Vita, A Sonart Publication, 2000, Leonardo Volume 23 No. 2/3, 1990, p. 293; Sonia Landy Sheridan, Generative Systems & Generative Art, Liverpool: Liverpool School of the Performing Arts John Moores University, 1998, cover image; Gemma Cowan, Sonia Landy Sheridan: A Gender-ative Introduction to the Copy/Artist/Machine Dissertation, London: School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media, Birkbeck College, University of London, 2004, p. 61.

Diane Kirkpatrick, Katherine Hart, Mary Flanagan, The Art of Sonia Landy Sheridan, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, University Press of New England, 2009, ill, p. 22, p. 55, Cat. No. 66.

Provenance

The artist, Hanover, New Hampshire; given to present collection, 2004.

Catalogue Raisonne

Sonia Landy Sheridan - Diane Kirkpatrick Hood Inventory List #352: Mixed technique: "Self Portrait with Pig Foetus" 1971. To make this work, Sonia Sheridan "translated" a 3M Color-In-Color I print by placing it on top of 3M Type B Thermo-Fax paper and hea

This record is part of an active database that includes information from historic documentation that may not have been recently reviewed. Information may be inaccurate or incomplete. We also acknowledge some language and imagery may be offensive, violent, or discriminatory. These records reflect the institution’s history or the views of artists or scholars, past and present. Our collections research is ongoing.

We welcome questions, feedback, and suggestions for improvement. Please contact us at: Hood.Collections@dartmouth.edu

Subjects