A Pink, Creeping Feline on a Pedestal
October 15, 2021
My work focuses on objects in space and how they interact with the living. In this painting, a tomb-like structure, muted in color but in high contrast, frames the figurative scene within. Three women occupy this space: one in the foreground, painted with soft edges and the same low-chroma palette as the stone facade, her back turned to the viewer as she looks towards the scene unfolding in the center; and two other partial views of women, both clad in black and heavy eyeliner, outlined in cadmium yellow gazing out from a hole between two cool-toned and disjointed architectural screens. Bright and fluorescent pinks pop from the background, and a tiger-like figure on a pedestal appears ready to cross into a different plane.
In this work, two gendered stereotypes, the cloistered woman and the femme fetale, are represented. References were taken entirely from advertisements in the How to Spend It section of the Financial Times, a leading business daily newspaper with 80% male readership, who the FT states are “senior business decision-makers, high net worth consumers and influential policymakers.” As a minority reader, the advertisements and products placed within articles are problematic because they reinforce a false and antiquated vision of women as both angels and devious. A pink, creeping feline on a pedestal.
