‘Acting is not the same as feeling.’
In the research paper ‘Acting is not the same as feeling: Emotion expression in gait is different for posed and induced emotions’, Professor Jennifer Cook and colleagues recorded the speed at which people walked when they genuinely felt different emotions such as anger and sadness, and when posing (acting out) these emotions.
People walked fast when they were posing anger and slow when posing sadness. However, acting was not the same as feeling. Even though people said they genuinely felt sad, they didn’t change their walking speed, the same was true for anger.
This suggests that our bodies allow us to mask our emotions: what we feel on the inside is not always expressed on the outside. Catherine’s work draws upon this finding.
Biography
Catherine Fleming is a 27 year old self taught artist from Spiddal, Co. Galway. Her artistic practice revolves around themes of mental health. Using mostly oil paints, Catherine creates her large figurative works on homemade canvasses she builds in her workshop in Spiddal overlooking Galway Bay.
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