Objects of Substance - Ophelia

One of the 1999 Head Girls, Sally, now works in the arts and reveals that this sculptural commission was one of her first forays into the creative field. Judy recalls Sally recommending Bleakley as the artist they should contact, and together as Head Girls, they received advice from Sally’s mother, who worked at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Judy admitted that her interest in theatre influenced her being drawn to a sculpture titled Ophelia . Judy remembered: ‘Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation [of Hamlet ] had been released a few years earlier in 1996 and I remember going to see the four-hour director's cut at the Regent Theatre in the city. I was a big fan’. (Hainsworth 16/10/23) Bleakley’s Ophelia is clearly an adolescent, approaching, although never attaining, womanhood. She coyly shields her body, and her torso is twisted in line with her gaze. Her hair, incidentally, is neatly drawn up, contrary to other portrayals of her - those long, wild tendrils traditionally symbolic of Ophelia’s lost mind. Bleakley made the conscious decision to portray Ophelia nude: ‘I chose to sculpt her unclothed to best represent the line and form of the human body’. (Bleakley 20/9/2023) Thus, the artist found the subject more artistically interesting to sculpt her body this way. Indeed, the character’s figure speaks volumes - Ophelia kneels as if in reverence and her limbs overlap in self preservation. Certainly, as a visual device, the young woman’s crossed arms operate to lead the eye directly to her face.

Susan Bleakley, Ophelia (detail), 1999, bronze, Brisbane Girls Grammar School Collection.