Alicia Ross "Hot Mess"
Black & White Gallery / Project Space
This event has ended.
In Hot Mess, Alicia Ross explores the mechanism of the consensual production of symbolic values. She passionately tackles difficult subject matter and taboos within society and presents them as naked truth. The works’ often provocative appearances highlight the artist's ongoing exploration of ideas surrounding conflicting views of feminine identity in the contemporary society and the ubiquitous virtuous/voracious societal impulses towards the female form. Ross appropriates images from online media sources and digitally translates them into cross-stitched constructions, using the sewing machine as a drawing tool. The finished pieces reflect a fusion between hand-made traditions and digital aesthetics.
The exhibition centers around the series Phrenology Studies (2010), a group of 14 abstracted cross-stitched head studies of media-made female celebrities.The series was inspired by the basic theory and aestheticts of the debunked pseudoscience of phrenology which associated the shape and look of one's skull with the person's moral character —“reading” the surface of the head to determine personality, morality or character and illustrating with a map of the head. All portraits are appropriated from online news sources depicting various celebrity women. These women, many household names, reflect society's finicky praise of some who seemingly stray from societal norms while condemning others for similar behavior. Juxtapositions astutely point out these inconsistencies like the Octomom, Michelle Duggar and Kate Gosselin. Moreover, several head studies embody the madonna/whore conflict, which has been so prevalent in other works by Ross.
The exhibition also includes other works, such as Motherboard_11 (Down Boy) (2010), Philosophy Devouring Uranus, (2009) and Motherboard_8 (2008) with some of the figures remidiated from pornography sites, others appropriated from sites that display famous works of art and fashion websites.
Media
Schedule
from October 22, 2010 to November 21, 2010
Opening Reception on 2010-10-22 from 18:00 to 21:00