#WOMEN IN FOCUS, 2020
download text # WOMEN IN FOCUS, 2020 . RCSI
RCSI Art Committee Commission of a Series of Portraits from The Winner of the RCSI Art Award 2018.
A collaboration between photographer Amelia Stein and 9 leading members of the Academic Staff of RCSI.
This body of work portrays Staff who have achieved the distinction of Professor, Dean or Director at RCSI campus, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland .
These contemporary photographic portraits, undertaken in 2019, are of nine Women, Leaders in their particular fields of expertise and excellence.Each Woman photographed holds a particular chosen object which defines/ indicates their individual area of Expertise. The portraits were made in the Historic Boardroom of RCSI, 123 St Stephens Green, under the watchful eyes of the Women in the posthumous Painted Portraits.
ARTIST STATEMENT . A preliminary conversation with each of the subjects chosen for the Portrait Commission was the starting point for this body of work, in order to establish a level of understanding and trust between myself the photographer and the nine women on the staff of RCSI. There needed to be complicity between the person being photographed and the photographer, in this instance the fact that we were all women was to our advantage. It was a learning curve for all ten of us who took part in creating this work . There were the inevitable discussions on how women are perceived and of how to portray the very best possible version of themselves as women in their chosen professions in 2019. Many interesting conversations and discussions ensued before the process of making the work was commenced .
Working on the premise that each individual person would feel well represented by their own image and that as a body of work the sum of the individual images would capture a moment in time in the history of RCSI.