Ashley Eyster, Lighten, 2018. Abandoned Photograph and Cotton String, 3.35 x 5 inches. / Courtesy
The University of Arkansas Student Gallery, sUgAR, will host a reception for the exhibition, “Homage to Femmage” from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 29 inside the gallery at 1 E. Center St. on the downtown Fayetteville square.
The show will include works curated by Abigail Grix including sculpture, painting, collage, ceramics, photography and performance. Featured artists include Dani Godreau, Sam Mack, Katie McColgan, Anthony Kascak, Ashley Eyster, Cydnei Mallory, Rebecca Drolen, Hannah McBroom, Danny R.W. Baskin and Becky Posnak.
“Homage to Femmage” will exhibit works by contemporary artists that explore concepts related to the idea Femmage, a word originally defined as “traditional women’s techniques to achieve their art, sewing, piecing, hooking, cutting, appliquéing, cooking and the like–activities also engaged in by men but assigned in history to women. This way of working investigates the idea of ‘other’, a feminine aesthetic, and appealing to established power structures to foster appreciation for women’s art.” The goal of the show is to provide contemporary examples of art that could be classified as Femmage and to contextualize materials and traditions of making. Many of the works in the show although not traditional Femmage, respect and honor the influence of Femmage artists.
From the event:
The works offer examples and new suggestions through landscape, patterning and collage. Video projections become photographic while scrap materials are transformed into memes. Instagram becomes a platform for the “diarist”, while simultaneously blurring the line between an audience and an audience of intimates. As the work expands our ideas on Femmage, it also rejects classifications that require a specific gender identity. Instead, these works might ask questions like, “What are contemporary depictions of the woman/life contexts? Is gender necessary or relevant to the artists? How is this different than the (singular) consideration of “woman”?”
Rebecca Drolen, Vulnerable Parts, 2017. Photograph, 30 x 40 inches. / Courtesy
