Justene Williams
Radium girl - Fan fingernails, 2013-14
Commissioned by Artbank for the series 'Performutations' curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham
'Radium girl – fan fingernails' is based in part on the historical account of female factory workers in Orange, New Jersey who contracted radiation poisoning around 1917 from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark paint that they were led to believe was harmless. After the paint was ingested from licking the paintbrushes to keep a fine point, or from applying it to their fingernails and teeth for fun, several women challenged their employer in a case that established the right of individual workers to sue their employers.
For Justene Williams, the Radium girl’s factory floor is transformed into a fantastical dance floor that abounds with references to cubism, early cinema, Soviet sci-fi and atomic bomb propaganda. The fan dance presents the body as a ‘folded form’ – a living, breathing sculptural object that is animated by refracted light, colour and movement. With a lurid palette that assaults the senses, Williams is an alchemist whose crude science experiment erupts into a radioactive trance/dance spectacular.