THE FEMININE ART OF SHOOTING: the collision between fine art and firearms
My shooting is still.
Not violence, not fervour.
My shooting is controlled breath as I kneel in the grass, surrounded by trees.
Millimetric adjustments of my cheek and shoulders to line up a distant pink dot.
My rifle moves up and down with my breath, and when I’m still enough,
I lightly tug the trigger.
Slowly, I stand and walk towards the pink dot;
Let’s see how close I got this time.
This project began with the ambition to reimagine targets as art objects with deliberate composition and colour—handmade originals instead of simply black lines printed on copy paper from a JPEG found on Google Images. Through the creative process, I came to see rifles as mark-making tools which allow me to place precise ruptures using powerful gestures. The Feminine Art of Shooting traces my progress as a markswoman, archiving my moments of stillness in painted objects.
I would like to thank fabricator and marksman Matthew Lindsay. Without his input this project would not have been possible.