A Keen Eye For Detail
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A Keen Eye For Detail
from the Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello collection
Acrylic paint, rhinestones, and gold-plated chain on papier-mâché
Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello
I go into detail about what this collection is all about on the collection overview page, but if you haven’t seen that you can read the description in the accordion below - click the + sign.
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If you have spent any time in my company over the last six to eight months, you will have heard me talk about my latest collection, Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello.
The collection comprises 10 pieces inspired by things actual men said to me instead of hello during a period of online dating in my mid-thirties. I took screenshots of the most heinous, graphic, and creepy openers and, although at the time I wasn’t sure what I was saving them for, the idea for this collection arrived a few years later.
The purpose of bringing these ‘greetings’ (if you can call them that) into the light is not to demonise men, and paint them as predatory monsters in contrast to the delicate saintliness of women eyeroll. It’s to open the floor for discussions about the patriarchal waters we are all swimming in, perpetuate, and, to a greater or lesser degree, are complicit in.
I want to provoke discussions about rape culture, the male gaze, beauty standards etc etc, and explore all the ways in which we all benefit or are hindered by the status quo. Most importantly, I want you to join me in the horrified realisation of how NORMAL we’ve made all of these things.
When I’ve told people about this collection, the responses from women and men are vastly different. The women know immediately what I’m referring to, and usually respond with some related (horror) story, delivered in the blasé manner of someone who has been dealing with this shit her whole life (because she has).
The men on the other hand, range from absolutely horrified, to knowing stuff like this happens but only in an abstract kinda way, to (on one memorable occasion) asking me if any of the ‘Men’ I’m referring to have ever mentioned my “great tits” - I kid you not.
I’m not going to go into all of the ways that the patriarchy is a problem for men as much as it is a problem for women (and I’m aware that I’m leaning into the gender binary here for simplicity’s sake, but really it’s a problem for ALL of us), but suffice to say that we can’t make things better unless we can see, identify, and name the problem.
This collection is my contribution to bringing these open secrets into the light.
A Keen Eye For Detail
We reach new heights (or should that be lows?) of wit and repartee with this conversation opener: ‘I can see you have big boobs’.
Once again we’re reducing women to their constituent parts, are we? Seriously? Sigh. Eye roll.
In this piece, though, I’ve done the same. Fractured the body into parts. Creating a pair of disembodied, golden chainmail-covered breasts so monumental that this man’s reductive gaze is rendered almost cosmically pathetic.
This piece is sculptural, with the breasts themselves protruding some 20cm from the surface. They are imposing, demanding, undeniable. Forcing everyone who comes into contact with them to acknowledge their existence. There's no pretending these breasts exist in some separate artistic realm. They're here, in the room, taking up space, demanding you deal with them.
This makes you, the viewer, complicit in an interesting way. You can't look at this piece without confronting your own response to encountering female anatomy in public.
Do you want to look? Do you feel you shouldn't? Do you find them beautiful, threatening, uncomfortable, powerful? Whatever you feel, you have to feel it in proximity to the piece. Not to mention in a shared physical space. You can't view it from a comfortable distance and remain uninvolved. It literally gets in your way, demands accommodation, refuses to be a passive object of contemplation.
These breasts are disembodied because that's what objectification does - it fragments: chops us up into ‘good’ bits and ‘bad’ bits. But they're also disembodied because in their isolation, they become pure expression, pure power, pure refusal to be anything other than what they magnificently are.
And I wanted them to feel magnificent, regal. Almost god-like in their scale. The golden chains that encircle them suggest an impenetrability, a self-containment, and more than that, an inherent value. They are protected and ready for battle, but they are also bejewelled and drip with gold. These are the breasts of a warrior queen.
They are not soft and yielding. They don’t exist to nurture or comfort. They’re armoured, rigid, confronting: calling to mind Athena’s breastplate, or Amazonian warrior women. They’re not for you, or anyone else but themselves.
The text on this piece is tiny in comparison, dwarfed by the epic breasts they describe. It’s rendered in red rhinestones and insinuates itself around the curves, close, but not touching, the chainmail. The words here are rendered inconsequential. Insignificant. The statement of fact is wholly redundant. Yes, I have big boobs. And? So what? What else do you have to offer me?
See the rest of the pieces in this collection below.
