Feminine Space can be seen as an invitation for five female artists to create work that deals with the materiality of space, form and matter, from a gender based viewpoint. This show is an opportunity to allow women the space to make, unencumbered.
Ultimately, the question of the relevance of gender comes to the fore. How much influence does gender have over the making and viewing of a work?
In Tricia Page’s Bound Series the simultaneous potential for tension and comfort between two objects is explored. The skin like nylon of the forms ignites a physical memory for the viewer. A discourse emerges around the complexity and precariousness of physical and emotional relationships.
Chafia Brook’s Chrysalis also touches on the role of the body. Using her body as a performative tool, Brook’s attempts to investigate how we interact with our surroundings. By mimicking the movements of moths, this work questions how the human body operates and suggests different modes of operation. We are encouraged to question the level of influence our environment has on our own physicality.
Yellow Tear by Genevieve Pikó consists of a computer generated animation played on a monitor. A length of sheer yellow fabric is attached to the unit, stretching from screen to wall. As black and yellow strips punctuate and disrupt the surface of the screen, a memory of the visual static created when a video is at the end of its reel, is recalled. The monitor’s speakers cast out a sound recording of fabric being torn. What appears as a digital fissure is underpinned by the reality of emotional distress. The looped animation is halted in a state of disrepair.
Double Dresses can be seen as homage to my Grandmother, Geraldine. Wearing conjoined dresses, my mother and myself re-perform craft-based acts that once made up the daily fabric of Geraldine’s life. A performance made evermore poignant by the progression of Geraldine’s Alzheimers. This work can be seen as an attempt to reevaluate what constitutes craft, while strengthening and affirming my own female familial lineage.
Conglomeration on the other hand references the past, devoid of body. Repurposed slips exaggerate the absence of the physical body in the work. The reconfigured garments could belong to anyone- their origin is unclear. The hand sewing and weaving that has taken place create a sense of restriction and highlights the garments function of concealment.
This restriction refers to the social, familial, gender and cultural restrictions that exist within our society for women. One may question how unconscious, yet prevalent these restrictions are?
Acting as a bridge between these two works is Sewing Exercise – a still taken from a performance where I sewed my hair into the slip I was wearing. This action was an attempt to embed a part of oneself in the cloth- highlighting the relationship of exchange that occurs when we interact with material things. The body becomes both subject and object- the specificity of the female experience is content and the performance is process.
Kaitlyn Gibson’s practice looks at process, object and the body through the repetition of predetermined steps. Line is used as a visual anchor to time and place. Focusing on unnoticed matter, Gibson urges us to be present in our surroundings. Continuation is an effort to align ones spatial awareness, physicality and emotionality.
- Josephine Mead, 2013
Ultimately, the question of the relevance of gender comes to the fore. How much influence does gender have over the making and viewing of a work?
In Tricia Page’s Bound Series the simultaneous potential for tension and comfort between two objects is explored. The skin like nylon of the forms ignites a physical memory for the viewer. A discourse emerges around the complexity and precariousness of physical and emotional relationships.
Chafia Brook’s Chrysalis also touches on the role of the body. Using her body as a performative tool, Brook’s attempts to investigate how we interact with our surroundings. By mimicking the movements of moths, this work questions how the human body operates and suggests different modes of operation. We are encouraged to question the level of influence our environment has on our own physicality.
Yellow Tear by Genevieve Pikó consists of a computer generated animation played on a monitor. A length of sheer yellow fabric is attached to the unit, stretching from screen to wall. As black and yellow strips punctuate and disrupt the surface of the screen, a memory of the visual static created when a video is at the end of its reel, is recalled. The monitor’s speakers cast out a sound recording of fabric being torn. What appears as a digital fissure is underpinned by the reality of emotional distress. The looped animation is halted in a state of disrepair.
Double Dresses can be seen as homage to my Grandmother, Geraldine. Wearing conjoined dresses, my mother and myself re-perform craft-based acts that once made up the daily fabric of Geraldine’s life. A performance made evermore poignant by the progression of Geraldine’s Alzheimers. This work can be seen as an attempt to reevaluate what constitutes craft, while strengthening and affirming my own female familial lineage.
Conglomeration on the other hand references the past, devoid of body. Repurposed slips exaggerate the absence of the physical body in the work. The reconfigured garments could belong to anyone- their origin is unclear. The hand sewing and weaving that has taken place create a sense of restriction and highlights the garments function of concealment.
This restriction refers to the social, familial, gender and cultural restrictions that exist within our society for women. One may question how unconscious, yet prevalent these restrictions are?
Acting as a bridge between these two works is Sewing Exercise – a still taken from a performance where I sewed my hair into the slip I was wearing. This action was an attempt to embed a part of oneself in the cloth- highlighting the relationship of exchange that occurs when we interact with material things. The body becomes both subject and object- the specificity of the female experience is content and the performance is process.
Kaitlyn Gibson’s practice looks at process, object and the body through the repetition of predetermined steps. Line is used as a visual anchor to time and place. Focusing on unnoticed matter, Gibson urges us to be present in our surroundings. Continuation is an effort to align ones spatial awareness, physicality and emotionality.
- Josephine Mead, 2013