“13 poèmes visibles” is comprised of 12 Super-8 film projections titled “avant de mourir” juxtaposed with a single projection, “Ophelia.”
Patricia Reinhart uses a technique to produce these film loops which she has named ciné-collage. Multiple still photographs of characters and location details are collaged together in painterly layers and given just enough movement to provide a living depth of color and space.
Patricia Reinhart’s work is a ‘one-woman production.’ She is the model for every character portrayed and all of the images are sourced and arranged by her in a very private studio practice. This process offers a singular viewpoint using a character which is as once a symbol, avatar, and metaphor.
The theme-setting image in this installation, “Ophelia,” functions both as a reference to the artwork by John Everett Millais and to Shakespeare’s character herself in Hamlet. Ophelia’s character represents women’s sexuality and passions as a madness leading to tragedy and death, in her case by drowning that is assumed to be suicide.
These works have a direct relationship to melodrama as a form of performance technique, especially in certain operas. Reinhart’s melodramas, rather than having the stock characters of hero, heroine, villain, and so on, consist of a single female character. The overall effect is a narrative of personal growth in the face of an apocalyptic existential state of being.