What objects are related to femininity? Male-dominated artwork historic eras level to extra conventional motifs corresponding to flowers for fertility and dainty, home accoutrements like lace and porcelain. A extra up to date perspective may embrace on a regular basis objects from the pharmacy, corresponding to disposable shaving razors, claw clips, and lipstick.
From centuries previous to current day, do these objects in the end embody comparable messages about femininity that face up to the take a look at of time? This overarching query is a catalyst for San Francisco-based artist Annie Duncan.
Inside her work, sculptural assemblages of mascara tubes, necklaces, fragrance bottles, and droopy flowers resemble the acquainted floor of a cluttered self-importance or overcrowded rest room countertop. Though Duncan rigorously locations every sculpture in these compositions, their dysfunction achieves an air of authenticity. From uncapped cherry Chapstick tubes standing as in the event that they had been set down in a rush to discarded rings one determined to not put on in any case, there may be realism and relatability in every thought-about element.
Encountering widespread items at an outsized scale prompts the viewer to confront the social affect every merchandise holds. For example, in “Material Girl,” an enlarged IUD implant is scattered amongst quite a lot of ubiquitous merchandise, calling to the desensitization of challenges confronted by these with feminine our bodies. “Suddenly, the presence of these objects and everything they evoke—the burden, the beauty, the cultural magnitude that they possess—is too big to overlook,” the artist says.
Duncan begins each bit by sculpting clay with a playful disposition. “It really is just grown-up play-dough or Sculpey,” she remarks. Additionally a painter, the artist hones in on brushwork throughout the glazing stage. Treating the bisque-fired floor as a canvas, her ceramic kinds come to life with a lustrous sheen.
Currently, the artist has been exploring the facility of duality and the way the concept of expectations versus actuality might be communicated by means of her sculptures.
“It’s become a really generative theme in my work; this sense that we’re carrying around our hopes and ambitions, and there’s always an adjustment that happens with the real thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean disappointment, but a sort of a flipping or altering of the plan,” Duncan explains. “To me, this feeling is deeply embedded in the feminine experience. Dialing down your initial vision, and learning to be ok with it; saying one thing while meaning another.”
Duncan is at the moment engaged on a forthcoming group present that can happen in Seoul. Discover her on Instagram for updates and take a look at her web site for extra paintings.
