STATEMENT
Vianne Furey (she/they) is a London based artist, multidisciplinary performer, and creator.
Invariably restless, they often find the makings of happiness within disruption. Movement has long been a point of fascination, leading first to their training in classical ballet and contemporary dance, and most recently a career within the London cabaret scene as a burlesque performer: an all-encompassing art form. Vianne finds a great deal of satisfaction in the process of making, from the ephemeral beginnings of seizing a thought, to the hands-on nature of making these thoughts tangible. This can be seen within every aspect of her practice – from charcoal studies to costumes designed for the stage. Regardless of medium, their work explores a vibrant, and at times threatening inner world: coaxing out the components to form into a vivid and entertaining experience for their viewers.
Combining live, immersive performance, cabaret, costuming, photography, film and writing, their latest project translates the infamous ‘Red Riding Hood’ tale into ‘RED//WOLF’, an alternative, underground world, rich in escapism and embracing the darker themes that many narratives choose to omit. A collaborative project, RED//WOLF draws from London’s creative industries, bringing together a growing collective of like minds across art, fashion, and media. Vianne’s influences include Alexander McQueen, Angela Carter, Pina Bausch, Mike Nelson, Quentin Tarantino, Punchdrunk and Company XIV.
SHOOTS - SELECTED STILLS
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Red Gaetano as ‘Wolf’ - Vianne Furey as ‘Red’ - Photography by Matthew Tate and Anthony Wood - Makeup by Amy Lennox and Katie Dowson - Hair by Red Gaetano - Styling and costumes by Vianne Furey.
CONCEPT SKETCHES & NOTES
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STORYLINE
Transcript (without additional media) from redwolfstory.com/story
See website for full version.
March I
Winter is easing, and the dusk before the snow melts, he sees her, Red on grey and white.
She stands alone at a corner on Frith street. Waiting. He wonders what for. As she turns to stare, in this direction and that, a tint of neon awakens the blush of her cheeks. Her eyes flicker and frisk behind her. Nothing there but swift mice, sooty, ice buried fag ends and the last, perfect snowfall.
March II
Except him. Shrouded in murkiness of a favourable passage, he waits, lit only by the pinprick of a dwindling cigarette. Even the paper is black. Nothing escapes his lidless eyes, his canny ears or snout, nor the razor bristles of his cheeks.
But as the crimson of her cape satiates his willing pupils, lingering like smoke, she is gone.
March III
It is dawn, when the key grinds in the lock of his den. A spiral staircase hangs in the air with the dust, making way for a chamber: four dust clad walls, all framing a kind of faded affluence. A state of perpetual decay rules and yet the room seems numb, unchanging,
suspended in an existence much like Wolf’s own.
He is everywhere and nowhere, all at once.
April I
The dim bulb of a lone lamp begins to flicker, the only source of light in Wolf’s night-time stupor. His sleep is fitful, as he trips and falls around a dream state not unlike each night before, but somehow distinct from the last. A pigment leaks into the otherwise monochrome blur of each image, growing in prominence.
A week later, his visions are saturated. It is all red.
April II
Unwittingly, she is in. The streets narrow, Soho district contracts, its breath held as their ways cross, impending and receding each night. Mortar aches, paving stones jostle, until the streets can shrink no more. Finally, fate corners them. Eyes meet. And so, it begins.
April III
They move from the streets into quixotic seclusion. The days are merely passers-by through a murky window. The chase is now confined to the chess board, distance reduced to breath, solved by the pull of tangled sheets. All can be gained from a tug. Newsprint proves time, and that is all.
April IV
Every game has a winner and a loser.
May I
What the city lacks in sightings, it catches in whispers.
Sheets unfurl, soak, twist, dry, their secrets glancing through the hands of the laundress,
to lie down again.
May II
The flicker of a lamp draws Red’s glance. Only visible in the periphery of her vision, but still, a diversion from the haze drenched room. And then darkness. Power cuts.
The two month, dormant curtains finally shift. She peers out.
Cobbles shine dimly in a waxing gibbous moon. The street, once again, beckons.
COSTUMING
Wolf's head - making of, April 2023.
Red's corset and skirt- making of, April 2023.