Our Desires Are Not Our Own
Glow 2019 Photographic wallpaper, 3m x 2m
Spit 2019, 76 x 60cm Edition 1-6 of 6 +2 AP
Wet 2019 76 x 60cm 1-6 of 6 + 2 AP
Pillow talk 2019, 76 x60cm Edition 1-6 of 6 + 2 AP
Lick 2019, 76 x 60cm Edition 2-6 of 6 + 2 AP
Golden Girl 2019, Photographic wallpaper 2m x 1.5m
Pout 2019, 76 x 60cm Edition 1-6 of 6 + 2AP
Power lips 2019, 76 x 60cm Edition 2-6 of 6 + 2 AP
Bite 2019, 76 x 60cm Edition 1-6 of 6 + 2 AP
Field of desire, dimensions variable, unlimited edition signed by the artist
“Massive investments have been made throughout history to ensure that female desire is kept in check” – Esther Perel
Our Desires Are Not Our Own explores the ambiguity and complexity of the emotions of female desire and pleasure once woman is no longer positioned as the ‘object’ of heterosexual male desire.
The ‘male gaze’ as coined by Laura Mulvey in 1975 speaks to the way in which women historically have been presented in visual arts and literature as objects of male pleasure and desire. In response to this, Jill Soloway in her TIFF Master Class identifies the male gaze for the way it “shames (women’s) desire (and) names only the desire that is okay with them.” She investigates the notion of the ‘female gaze’ and the idea of the ‘subjective camera’. This exhibition raises the question, can one, as Soloway suggests “reclaim the body...to evoke a feeling of being in feeling, rather than seeing” when for so long these images have been a channel for male desire and a tool of power? As a woman and an artist can I create images of the female body that successfully speak to how it feels to be the object of the gaze? And can these images really be separated from the power dynamic within which they were created?
Selected by Art Guide Australia as Top 5 Exhibitions in August
Exhibited at Stockroom Gallery, August 2019