Capturing Ghosts: On Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman, *House #3 Providence, Rhode Island* (1976). Gelatin silver print. © Francesca Woodman / BONO

It may not be surprising that I, as a future art historian, curator, or something of the sorts, am easily intrigued by an artist with a backstory and portfolio out of the ordinary. That’s why I was clearly doomed once I came across the mysterious photographer Francesca Woodman, and why I have been haunted by both her and her art for the past couple of months.

Francesca Woodman, *Self portrait talking to vince* (1980). Gelatin silver print. © BONO

I have never been very interested in photography as an artistic medium, even though I did take an introductory class to art and photography in my second year of university. The medium generally never peaked my interest in the way other mediums did, until last year when I saw Francesca Woodman’s Self portrait talking to vince.

Francesca Woodman was born to artist parents who were both respected in the New York art scene, and it was her father who first gifted her a camera which ended up laying the foundation for her artistic expression. At the age of 13 she took the first of many self portraits, and in the end she left behind more than 11000 negatives and 800 printed photographs.

Her photographs are often described as ghostly, surrealist or dreamlike, and they are all in black and white, still, yet full of movement. These hauntingly beautiful motifs caught my attention right away, and seems to be what captivates most of her audience as well. The aesthetics of Francesca Woodman’s art is emphasised by her biographic history, and is perhaps what makes her art so eerie.

Although I find it important not to define artists by their biographies, I could not help myself falling into a rabbit hole when it came to Francesca Woodman. Her art had truly captured me, and I felt compelled to understand the person behind these dark images. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before I discovered that there is very little written about her, and whatever there is, typically says similar or even the same things.

In a desperate attempt to get closer to her, I looked up and ordered pretty much any literature I could find on the artist. Still, there was not much that weren’t interpretations of her art based on her quite vague public biographical history; a couple years in Italy here and there, her time at Rhode Island School of Design, and to many most importantly, her suicide at age 22.

The mystery of it all seems to be what draws people in, and I suppose that was what it did to me as well. The more you look at her photographs, the more you want to know about her, and the quicker you come to realise that that is not an easy task. In a way it becomes almost addicting to try to make sense of it all - her life, her art, and her death.

My relentless search has left me stumped and without proper sources to look and refer to. I am therefore not here to pass on much concrete knowledge about Francesca Woodman, because whatever I have found does not go deeper than what you get from a simple search online. Instead I am hoping that we together can appreciate her art and the mystery of it.

Literature

Keany, Magdalene, Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In. National Portrait Gallery Publications, London, 2024.

Conley, Katharine. “Francesca Woodman’s Ghostly Interior Maps.” In Surrealist Ghostliness, 151–78. University of Nebraska Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ddr900.12.

Capturing Ghosts: On Francesca Woodman

Pieter Bruegels magiske fjellandskap