Sïan Kelly: Statement
The body is a site in Western art that is categorised by corporeal symbolism pertaining to a specifically binary model of gender. The way we are taught to read the body as gendered presents a significant chasm between the expanded philosophical concept of gender, and its translation into a visual field of thought.
Residues 1-5 make up part of the artist’s work Body Language (2020), a collection of works across sculpture, performance and installation that seeks to prompt the audience to critique binary perception, categorisation and consumption of the body. To push up against spectacularity and gain autonomy. The sculptures sit between embodiment and legibility. Born from the performative gesture of the artist binding their chest with artificial skin, each piece presents a relief of their body, fossilizing what is an otherwise temporal state of transformation.These auto-biographical sculptures strive to align the visual presence of the artist’s body not just with their own identity as non-binary, but with the expanded philosophical and phenomenological concept of gender as a whole.
Claire Welch, Sian Kelly, Brigitte Podrasky, Meredith Cravey & Emma Pinsent
Is it black and white....
May 13-28, 2021