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Eat Me Overview
Preview this show at the Palo Alto Art Studios #J32.
This show was to premier in total in New York at the Chelsea
Art Building (526 W. 26th St., NY, NY 10001), but it was censored and was not seen
in the show.
Instead, another Szn show, Dreamscapes, is presented in the gallery at #9G on,
March 13 - March 30, 2008.
However, I brough the center piece, "Eat Me"and "Alice in Wonderland" to my salon studio down the hall from the gallery, in #909. I am opened my studio, #909, on throughout March for visitors.
| Read this series top-down, then left-right. |
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| These seven paintings tell a story of a struggle to freedom |
While
planning a performance piece for my gallery, I had a vision of seven naked women sitting in a semi-circle
with cakes
in their laps with "Eat Me" in icing on top.
I thought of this as a ironic comment about the exploitation of women in America. However, I didn't want to commit an imitative
fallacy by exploiting women for the sake of a statement... about exploitation! That's when the idea flipped inside out.
It expanded vertically and horizontally beyond naked women to all women, inside and outside America. As the breadth of the
vision widened, I realized that a transient performance piece would not do it justice. I created, instead, a permanent mark,
a series of paintings that put into image what all women know – that the suppression and objectification of women world-wide will only stop
when all women stand against it. "Eat Me" is a linear journey from infancy to womanhood. It is interesting that while Hillary is changing the way we think of
women in America, the Tabilan is experiencing a re-surgence, causing more women to suffer needlessly. I see the Eat Me
series as "Hillary meets the Taliban" The story of Eat Me is deeply personal to me. I came
from a blue-collar, factory town. I walked to school on gravel paths and cement walks, crossing over train tracks and along
side grimy, grey factory buildings. My gang of friends and I smoked cigarettes as we wound our way through the maze to school.
No one had plans for college or what lay beyond the city limits. I was different. Even though I didn't know exactly where
they lived, I held rallies to raise money for the hungry people of the world. I painted and drew at nights, mornings and weekends.
I was drawn to study art and later to science. Many times I was only repelled forward by veering away from brutality, closed
minds, and low expectations. I want to expose and shed more light on the literal and metaphorical
suppression and objectification of women. There are women out there who I know could help our world as well as theirs, by
helping themselves to be the human being they came into this life to be. Being aware is the first step. Educating
oneself, the next.
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