Curator’s Statement: Undressing the Feminine

There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results.
-Judith Butler

In postmodern culture, we explore our identity primarily through assuming and performing the social roles constructed by our culture. This exhibition was curated to analyze, critique, and deconstruct the shifting roles of gender, primarily, what is it to be feminine in the 21st century. The objects selected incorporate a performative element whether it is staged, presentation of the self, or performance of imagined characters. The very nature of the creation of these objects that deconstruct femininity illustrates the truth of what is it to be feminine in today’s culture.

Role playing is a very important contextual element in the work of J. Aiden Simon.  Entering the formative years of his artistic path, Simon explores and documents his gender identity during his transformation from female to male. In powerful black and white images, Aiden photographs his body’s state in the neutral area between female/male. The viewer is shown images of a surgically and hormonally altered body. Through his art, Simon challenges cultural values concerning masculinity by asserting that to be masculine is not to have a penis of a certain size or to even be born with a male body.

Similarly, Becky Flanders challenges conventions of femininity and masculinity by documenting herself in the position typically understood to be masculine-urinating while standing up. Flander’s doesn’t alter her gender identity, in fact her nudity presents a sexual paradox-evocative and intimate. Flander’s subverts the idea of gender roles by using her female body to accomplish a physical feat perceived only associated by males. With staged performance, Flanders’s raises many questions about how culture not only constructs identity but also the very nature and function of the female body.

Sean Fader also uses photographic imagery to examine what it means to assume a social/gender role. Fader playfully digitally modifies his images so that he can assume their identity, essentially “trying them on for size”. His appearance in his photos suggests the notion of body suits and sweaters; theatrical training enables him to adeptly assume the emotional expression of his subjects. Fader’s work speaks to the nature of gender identity in flux; one that can be perceived as fluid and easily shifted or discarded. His subjects are interchangeable, altered, and ultimately re-imagined.

Misty Gamble builds clay hands sporting long fingernails and large diamond rings in order to examine the expectations of propriety and social expectations and how they affect our patriarchical image of femininity. She exemplifies the price women pay for self worth by displaying expressive hands without a body, without an identity, but with their expensive symbols of social status.

Anne Drew Potter’s work similarly employs this theme of cultural and social construction of the body, specifically in instances of the “disposable body” and the “celebrity body”. While using the face of Shirley Temple, the embodiment of girlhood, she juxtaposes this highly recognizable symbol with the body of a starving child, a victim of poverty. Through this juxtaposition she asks the questions, “how can we justify that we lavish so much care and love on one body and deny it to another? Would it make a difference if that despised body came with an attractive, appealing face?”

Connie Imboden investigates the materiality of the human body and the possibilities of the body’s interactions with space. She creates surreal compositions without digital manipulation rendering moments where the body becomes an abstract image without a personal history.

Bonnie Seeman’s metaphorical imagery is a way to define the lushness of female anatomy. Through the use of vessels embellished with botanical shapes and insect forms, subjects become a representation of the human body ripe with reproductive opportunity. Her work illustrates maternity, fertility and abundance.

Each of the exhibiting artists experiments with the notion of femininity as a platform for social commentary and self introspection.  They demonstrate a fearlessness in approaching subject matter many consider taboo, not for shock value but to create a dialogue that provides thoughtful observations about ourselves.  Whether they succeed in their goals is up to the perspective of viewer.