Co-curated by Shana Nys Dambrot and Susan Melly, Feminist Variations at Loft at Liz’s through September 19th, expresses feminist issues without rancor. Nys Dambrot and Melly are second and third from the right, above, joining exhibition artists and gallery owner Liz Gordon.
Works by Annie Terrazzo, Lauren Kasmer, Victor Wilde, Peter Walker, Susan Melly, and Carol Sears present relationships to diverse aspects of feminism in political, social, and philosophical terms. The female body, its physicality and it’s evocation in myth and allegory, is the subject of this highly poetic and vibrant exhibition. This is feminism as a life force, as a woven – in some cases, through items of clothing, literally – design in the pattern of life.
Above, artist Victor Wilde serves up stellar pancakes at the show’s opening August 27th, and creates the clothing-based artwork below.
Co-curator Shana Nys Dambrot explains the exhibition’s genesis. “About a year ago I met Susan Melly. She was in a critic group in which it was noted to her that her work presented a feminist critique that wasn’t a complaint. Her work was engaged with the issues without anger. We talked about that, and worked on the idea together, and really rallied around the idea of how the female body takes up space in the world, from fashions and wearables to negative space in abstract composition, as we brought other artists into the exhibition.”
Susan Melly adds: “I had a discussion on a piece of mine with art critic and curator Peter Frank during a critique, in which I was telling him I always considered myself a feminist, but in a way in which differences between men and women should be acknowledged, but without complaint. That became the theme of the show.”
Melly, whose work includes materials such as the paper-thin dress patterns her mother kept, poses with some of her work above.
“We were looking for artists whose work spoke to that idea. They did not have to be female. Of the six artists in the show, two of us are men.”
Peter Walker’s beautifully detailed works here are created from graphite on paper. “I have been interested in exploring identity, the casual associations especially in a metropolis, where most of our sensations are fleeting and temporary. These pieces explore our chance encounters and how we identify ourselves as part of that random chance encounter.”
Walker was trained as a painter, but with these works wanted to emphasize the ephemeral. “Pencil on paper felt more fragile, which was what I wanted to convey for a message, the fragility of these relationships,” he relates.
Lauren Kasmer’s background is in photography. She’s the daughter of a clothing designer who only recently decided that fabric and photography belonged together in her work.
“I usually work as an installation artist. Photos and video and live elements here at the opening all depict people wearing my clothes. There are many commonalities in clothing, in art. I’m sharing these commonalities, not the differences between men and women.”
Working in a wide range of mediums, the artists in this exhibition create a body of work that deals in contrasts and fluid relationships, on change and sameness, on awareness of the Venus/Mars differences, the bond of humanity, and the shared knowledge of the world that men and women experience – together.
Loft at Liz’s is located at 453 S. La Brea, Los Angeles.
- Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke
