This is a guest post from artist, curator, and arts writer Aimee Mandala
A safe space and maybe even a safe word, Theodosia Marchant’s Unspoken Dreams, a solo show located at Great Art Space in Beverly Hills and curated by Olivia Niles, captures the fantasies, vulnerabilities and essences of feminine desires at their core. Socially and historically the female relationship with sexual freedom has been marred—our desires, needs and objective pleasures have often been sacrificed and safekept deep inside the softest and maybe sweetest parts of ourselves— never to escape the confines of our minds. This collection of work— bold, seductively engaging and powerful— challenges that truth.
Marchant acknowledges this series was not created in solitude. It was built on trust, conviction and certitude of women willing to share their otherwise protected sexual reveries. It is simply glorious to witness a woman light up, sharing her deepest, even darkest desires in a circle of women— open, completely at ease and so ready at the tip of her tongue— the delight, the absolute glee as it exits her mouth and enters the eager air around us. I know immediately— this is a gift. This bravery, this unwavering and unabashed acknowledgement of fragility that went from a whisper in her soul to a confident declaration that moved through Marchant with a steady hand, paintbrush to canvas.
Each confessed truth, whether purely sexual or possessing underlying psychological undercurrents, is interpreted by Marchant and subsequently transformed into captivating visual explorations. While style and form consistently ring true to Marchant’s signature figures and forms, these alluring, vivid and even mind-tangling works encourage the viewer to meander scenes where each piece tells a story of it’s own. And for an exquisite moment, we are taken into this world where these Unspoken Dreams become a verbalized and downright pronounced reality.
The exhibition ran at Great Space in Beverly Hills April 29 through May 26th. The gallery is located at 9465 S. Santa Monica Blvd.
- Aimee Mandala, Artist /Curator /Arts Writer; photos provided by Aimee Mandala