Ethel: Forgive Me Not 1998
Performance exhibition curated by Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick.
Display Cult at OBORO Gallery, Montréal
Photo Credit: Unknown

“Travelling up the stairs, one unavoidably entered Louise Liliefeldt’s Ethel: Forgive me not through the vortex of a fierce windstorm. Amidst the raging and dizzying sound, a female figure leaned out over the stairwell, skin slicked in glittering gold, draped in white cloth, hair blowing in the wind. Her position recalled a ships figurehead, a Valkyrie, Nike - or a female crucifixion. Liliefeldt’s blazing focus was absolute, fixed somewhere beyond the beholder’s glance. Reckoning with the aftereffects of a Catholic childhood in South Africa, the artist portrayed a figure ensconced in an apocalyptic whirlwind that could alternately destroy or purify. Images of self-pleasure projected on to the blowing cloth instantiated her body as a source of enjoyment and strength, despite the repression and guilt induced by a religious upbringing. An extremely physical and taxing piece, Liliefeldt posed for up to three hours at a stretch, charging the space with her determination. Her presence was riveting and troubling; spectators were witness to some kind of shamanic. Ritual as the artist deliberately pushed beyond her threshold of endurance.”

~ COUNTERPOSES 2002 by Jennifer Fischer and Jim Drobnick