2018

I am currently exploring artistic depictions of women compared to the reality of our lives.

I reference and question the (predominantly-male) artistic view of women either as objects of desire, ripe for exploitation, or as household goddesses, safely controlled and restricted by child-bearing, child-rearing and domestic ‘duties’. Picasso once said that women were “goddesses and doormats”. He was/is not alone in that attitude.

Attempts to address or redress the issue have been “resolved” with violence, treated as a joke, met with comments such as “Get over it”, or simply ignored,. Sadly, for many women, change is slow or non-existent. They live, they reproduce and they die, unknown and unrecognised.

I have incorporated archaic ritual female figurines associated with fertility and reproduction with some of the vocabulary of motifs – washing on a clothes line, scars and stitches, hearts, houses, stars and rain – that appeared in my recent Moments of Truth and Unexpected World series, as well as earlier paintings from the 1980s.

Related news items

• Landfall Exhibition, Otago Art Society, Dunedin
• Dealing with the Gaze, Onishi Project, New York City
• International Prize Giulio Cesare, Rome
• Aesthetica Magazine, Aug/Sept 2018