My camera ... my life and my love ... was my Aladdin’s lamp.* (Weegee)

Weegee (Arthur Felig), a poor immigrants’ son turned famous New York photographer was well aware of the allure and effectiveness of transformation. Apparently, he used to change the captions of his photographs, recycling his images with new stories in order to sell them on to different publications.** He understood that the image could stay the same, however perception of the image could be changed again and again to create new possibilities for his viewers – and ultimately, profit for himself. For Weegee, appearances and meanings were slippery, interchangeable and endless.

Like Weegee, Mary MacDougall is interested in the translation of photographic images, and shares his appreciation for strange displays of theatricality.

Earlier this year MacDougall painted a series of images of Phil Spector during his notorious 2008 court appearances where he dressed in ridiculous, almost cartoon-like attire. There was something fascinating in the way that he presented himself – each outfit displayed effort, imagination and high regard for appearances and while his costume changed, his strangely blank expression seemingly never did. It wasn’t so much his crime or persona that interested the artist, but the weirdly appealing spectacle of his continual transformation.†

Transformation and translation are key ideas explored in MacDougall’s practice. Her paintings are based on photographs that she finds, often in online newspapers, or on photographs that she takes herself. With pieces of textured glass placed over the lens of her camera, MacDougall has taken photographs of friends making strange shapes with their bodies, as well as strangers on the street. From images where the singular perspective of the lens has been disrupted by undulating, patterned glass, strange shapes appear. These forms are then translated into paintings and through this painting process a series of inversions and contradictions become apparent.

By painting onto glass, an understanding of linear progression is gently confused; all of the marks made by MacDougall are visible and equal – from an initial sketch to the filling in of the work with smudges of colour made unpredictable due to the slippery nature of oil on glass. There is no painting ‘over’ something, but as the artist pointed out, the paint can be easily scraped off, making the process both fragile and simple – the artist has less to lose and more to play with when there’s an inherent experience of chance and when unwanted marks can bevanished.‡

The works offer countless possibilities. As paintings, they mimic photography as to look at through the smooth surface of glass, like the lens of a camera or a computer screen, albeit without a frame, which only heightens a feeling of fleeting light and spaciousness. Using glass gives the artist the opportunity to make tracings or prints in endless reproductions. The paintings can also be viewed as sculptural objects, displayed on neat, white shelves suggestive of an exhibit.

This element of display or theatre is an important aspect of MacDougall’s work. There’s the strange comedy and performance of Phil Spector in costume at his court appearances; the hand-made, rizo-copied poster, titled Circular Quay Performance (2009); the paintings of a distorted boat – a lonely vessel for adventure or the stage for rich-playthings posing, and the image reproduced in the exhibition catalogue of the artist’s brother dressed wearing all of her jewellery – a ridiculous or perhaps banal moment of sibling shenanigans that suggests or recognises that photographic images are staged, ridiculous and magic things and that there’s a fine line between mundanity and wonder.

* Arthur Felig, Weegee by Weegee: An Autobiography, New York: Ziff-Davos Publishing Company, 1961, p. 52 ** Virginia Heckert, ‘Weegee’s Story’, Weegee’s Story: From the Berinson Collection, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1999 † Phil Spector is an American music producer and songwriter, known for his pioneering production technique and work
with 1960’s girl groups and artists including The Beatles, the Ramones and Leonard Cohen. At points in his career he became reclusive and threatening – drawing weapons on women and musicians he was involved with. In 2003, actress Lana Clarkson was shot in his home, and in 2009, after two court cases (one of which was televised), Spector was charged with her murder, although claimed to be innocent.
‡ Conversation with the artist, 27 August 2009.