Healing Chaos issue and online exhibition view Exhibition dates 20.01-1.03.2021 Guest curator Alice Máselníková Published artists: Celina Vleugels, Vesper Jia , Lara Gallagher, Petra Schott, Sally Butcher and Tessa Wegman. Honorable mention: Adriana Furlong, Helena Parriott, Indrani Ashe, Jean Chung, Julie Maurin and Tatiana Bashlakova.
SELECTED ARTISTS
HONORABLE MENTION Adriana Furlong, Helena Parriott, Indrani Ashe, Jean Chung, Julie Maurin and Tatiana Bashlakova
ISSUE 9 printed in 50 copies Cover and all the background photography were taken by Ania Sokolova. LADIES DRAWING CLĂœB is an independent contemporary art community of young curators presents emerging artists/ladies from all over the world FIND MORE ISSUES ladiesdrawingclub.com ALL INQUIRIES hello@ladiesdrawingclub.com
ALICE MÁSELNÍKOVÁ
“Our obsession with categorising and attributing value through an array of intricate labels and boxes is embedded in human nature. It is a way to push chaos away, bring order where it seemingly lacks, and assure ourselves that things belong somewhere; that we belong. It is universal, but it does not take the chaos away – just look around you. The imbalance between order and disarray constitutes the core of existence; one would not be without the other. Healing chaos, what is that? Does it heal, or is it in need of healing? Already the ancient Greeks considered chaos – hubris – an inevitable part of life, something absolutely vital which contributes to the balance of the universe together with the interference of the divine. The title of this exhibition, Healing chaos, has been left purposely ambiguous – are we looking for ways to heal chaos, since we believe it is a malady to fend off and repudiate, or do we believe in its inherent powers, good and bad? Both the options leave us without a solution, since chaos cannot be attempted to be healed, nor can it ultimately save us. It simply is a part of what we are and have always been. It was quite fascinating to see the various interpretations of the exhibition’s title in this open call, and the selection of the artists was based both on their visual and conceptual quality and relevance to this ambivalent theme. I am pleased with how the selected artists visually complement each other whilst at the same time show completely different views on healing chaos. Lara Gallagher (FR/UK) questions how we approach the continuous battle between the inner and outer chaos, our simultaneous need for control and freedom. Her works are a deconstruction of older pieces, cut-up and reorganised according to two sets of grids, one random and one systematically designed, overlapping structure and discord in their intertwined nature. We can witness a direct attempt to give order to things that are commonly perceived as chaotic in the intricate geometric drawings of sanitised and organised female parts created by Sally Butcher (UK). Her large-scale drawings reimagine female reproductive organs that are typically presented as sensuous, unruly and leaking instruments into something neat, controlled and archived The paintings by Petra Schott (DE), on the other hand, admit their chaotic nature and deliberately search for answers to how to heal. At the same time sensitive and distinctly bodily, they evoke a sense of melancholy and struggle with the unpredictability of existence. Fabric and felt are the materials used in Celina Vleuguel’s (BE) intricate domestic works. Subjects of loss and emptiness as contrasted to warmth and safety, lightness of being versus the heaviness of destiny, are compiled together, sewn tight in her large fabric collages and gently hinted to in the smaller felt pieces. The pieces remind us of the idea that home is meant to fight chaos; we are offered a safe spot encompassed in the fabric’s softness and pastel shades.” Tessa Wegman’s (USA) digital collages are decidedly non-descriptive, embracing fully the randomness of algorithm-generated images that are used for the enticing brightly coloured works. Although it is not immediately apparent that they exist only in the digital realm and they could easily pass off for physically-made collages, they come across as honest and bold without the need to become something else.
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GUEST CURATOR
The delicate and ephemeral installation ‘Les Petites Morts’ by Vesper Jia (CN) reminds us of the things passing. A series of ice balls each containing a core of bone ash that gradually melt and transform is captivating in its fleetingness. A similar thought of time and change is seen in her work ‘Home Sweet Home’ where delicate yet uncontrollable sugar crystals grow from ceramic pelvic bones, outgrowing their initial shape into a new organism. Something melting, something growing: the things that arrive can be equally healing as those that leave. It is strange what sometimes helps us to feel better. Things that heal, make us happy, are not necessarily good, healthy things. Remember those small guilty pleasures or addictions that bring us satisfaction, or that sometimes we feel better at someone else’s expense. Is that chaos speaking through us, dragging us in its depths? Happiness is not a byproduct of daily reality anymore – it is something we actively pursue and demand instead of what we happen to come across. In our postmodern societies we have so many more resources and should have become so much better at being happy, being healthy – a knowledge at the cost of realising that no technological progress, no amount of all possible consumer products at hand, no super-speeded communication means will ever remove the chaos completely. I guess our idea of needing to redeem ourselves from chaos is very much conditioned by fear of being overcome by it, defeated by destiny in line with the tragedy of ancient Greece when lacking the other side of the existential balance. The desperate desire to be happy, the elusive fragile existential harmony that we want so much – prevented by chaos inside and outside – is no more but a utopian dream. But, it does not make our quest at finding this soft balance spot, questioning hubris and making peace with it, any less relevant or vital for our daily reality. I hope you enjoy this digital exhibition and that you make your own take on chaos and healing.”
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JULIE MAURIN 39-40 pages ADRIANA FURLONG 41-42 pages
TATIANA BASHLAKOVA 49 page HELENA PARRIOTT 43-46 pages ДФКФLARA GALLAGHER 11-13 pages INDRANI ASHE 47 page 3
JEAN CHUNG 48 page TESSA WEGMAN 14-18 pages
CELINA VLEUGELS 5-10 pages VESPER JIA 23-30 pages
SALLY BUTCHER 31-36 pages PETRA SCHOTT 19-22 pages 4
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
The works I selected for the “Healing chaos” exhibition, are mixed media pieces from the years between 2018 and 2020. I like working with raw cotton as canvas in combination with paint, hand embroidered pieces, felt brought all together into patchworks. Three years ago, for the first time, I found the courage to work around the loss of my mother (she died when I was twelve and I am now 24.) Since then the theme of loss, emptiness and the re-creation of warmth and safety has become the undertone of my creations. Last year I discovered the medium of felt, and in the process of doing it I found a certain comfort. The heaviness that the felt carries within it through the repetitive massaging it in with water and soap, and eventually it dries up like a light mass. The contrast between this heaviness and lightness is something that is always returning when I’m creating. Also the feeling of the transience, and the fact that everything is temporary, that’s why I often use recycled materials. I use textiles with which my mother used to make our curtains or our children’s clothes, to honour her somewhere. I like to play with materials that are sometimes not used in their particular function. I paint on fabrics that are unprocessed and thus change the structure of the surface, so that the transience is also accentuated. Layer on layer I manage to build on an image where memory meets imagination.
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CELINA VLEUGELS instagram.com/celinavleugels
“There Were No Women In History”. Housepaint, pigment, chalk and graphite on paper, 26x36cm, 2020. 6
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
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CELINA VLEUGELS
“How Can I Become You”. Patchwork of acrilyc, embroidery on different fabrics, 150cm x 205cm, series 2019. 8
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
“Temple Of Childhood Memories”. Embroidery and wet/ dry felting technique, 46cm x 50cm, series 2020. 9
CELINA VLEUGELS
“Going Nowhere”. Oil pastel, crayon and gouache, 297 x 210mm, 2020. 10
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
The set of work addresses the eternal debate around ‘nature vs nurture’ which also links in with the battle between inner and outer chaos. Throughout life, one is confronted with the need to control one’s inner and outer environment whilst experiencing contrasting desires of letting go. The work asks the questions : What defines us as living entities ? Do we react according to innate instincts ? Are we influenced and defined by our upbringing and environment ? It also questions the essence of what is considered ‘nature’, within our control, and what is ‘nurture’, out of our control ? What do we consider ‘chaos’ to be ? The artwork is based on a previously drawn piece that has been deconstructed and revisited. The original piece looks at the ever encompassing duality on earth and how our existence remains in a forever multiplying box. Inner and outer limitations, whether it be too many or a lack of is a recurring theme of life. The artwork was then divided and reassembled into 4 grids, 2 purposefully constructed (nature / control) and 2 decided at random (nurture / lack of control). By overlaying 2 grids at a time (1 constructed (nature) and 1 random (nurture)) 4 pieces emerge and 4 entities are born from the same chaotic duality. This is pushed further as each piece is of a different dimension and form (6xA4 – microscopic, cellular level / 6xA3 – reality, figurative level / 6xA2 – macroscopic, abstract level). The work was created in 2019-2020 with black ink pens on paper.
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ДФКФLARA GALLAGHER laragallagher.org
“Where Are We Now”. Ink on paper, 1260x1188mm, 6xA2, 2020. 12
ДФКФLARA GALLAGHER
“Where Are You Going” Ink on paper, 891x840mm, 6xA3, 2020. 13
TESSA WEGMAN
“DENTIST”. Digital, 2250 x 3300px, 2019. 14
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
My studio practice is strictly digital and incorporates online archives and found imagery. My attached work is part of an ongoing series that started in 2019. The series is titled “chaos” and explores the digital limitations of art while exploring digital identity and the role of designer versus artist. My digital compositions are collages of drawings, color explorations, scanned objects, and imagery. I acquire some of the imagery through an algorithm I created that randomly selects images and texts from online archives. The use of the algorithm is inspired by the notion that value is arbitrarily assigned and developed over time. The imagery’s meaning and purpose are then left up to the viewer to decide. I like to sum up my work by saying– My compositions exist in a digital realm of self-identity that is left to view through the lens of the internet.
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TESSA WEGMAN tessawegman.com
“249”. Digital, 3300 x 5100px, 2020. 16
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
“altar” Digital, 2650 x 4096px, 2020. 17
TESSA WEGMAN
“The Resurrection”. Digital, 2304 x 3072px, 2019. 18
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos The set of work addresses the eternal debate around ‘nature vs nurture’ which also links in with the battle between inner and outer chaos. Throughout life, one is confronted with the need to control one’s inner and outer environment whilst experiencing contrasting desires of letting go. The work asks the questions : What defines us as living entities ? Do we react according to innate instincts ? Are we influenced and defined by our upbringing and environment ? It also questions the essence of what is considered ‘nature’, within our control, and what is ‘nurture’, out of our control ? What do we consider ‘chaos’ to be ? The artwork is based on a previously drawn piece that has been deconstructed and revisited. The original piece looks at the ever encompassing duality on earth and how our existence remains in a forever multiplying box. Inner and outer limitations, whether it be too many or a lack of is a recurring theme of life. The artwork was then divided and reassembled into 4 grids, 2 purposefully constructed (nature / control) and 2 decided at random (nurture / lack of control). By overlaying 2 grids at a time (1 constructed (nature) and 1 random (nurture)) 4 pieces emerge and 4 entities are born from the same chaotic duality. This is pushed further as each piece is of a different dimension and form (6xA4 – microscopic, cellular level / 6xA3 – reality, figurative level / 6xA2 – macroscopic, abstract level). The work was created in 2019-2020 with black ink pens on paper.
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PETRA SCHOTT petra-schott.de
“Alone”. Egg tempera, pigments and graphite on canvas, 130x100cm, 2020. 20
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
“We Don’t Believe in Witches”. Oil colours egg tempera pigments graphite on paper, 150x160cm, 2019. 21
PETRA SCHOTT
“Where Have You Been so Long”. Egg tempera, pigments, oil sticks on canvas, 100x100cm, 2020. 22
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos “I am submitting three pieces of work that were made in the year of 2020, with the global pandemic going on and social chaos getting agitated. Throughout my works, I aim to create an experience of the sensual and conceptual poetics that could open up contemplation and reflection, which is, to me, the key for “healing chaos.” In “Les Petites Morts,” I casted individual ice balls with bone ash inside. I scattered them across the gallery space, letting the ice melt and the water evaporate. During the melting and evaporation, the water from individual ice balls connect and communicate with each other, slowly dissolving the bone ash. The residue left on the floor after the evaporation is many ruptured little piles of bone ash. In the bone ash painting “Reciproque,” I used two ice balls from “Les Petites Morts,” letting them melt next to each other and creating the image of love in which, according to Freud, “the boundary between ego and object threatens to melt away.” In “Home Sweet Home,” I grew sugar crystals on ceramic pelvis bones, those pointy little things making so sweet a home. Yours sincerely, Vesper Jia.”
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VESPER JIA vesperjia.com
“Copy of Home Sweet Home”. Sculpture, sugar, ceramics, 12x7x4 inches, 2020. 24
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
“Copy of Les Petites Morts”. Installation, ice, bone ash, dimensions adjustable (2 in each), 2020. 25
VESPER JIA
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ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
“Copy of Les Petites Morts (3)”. Installation, ice, bone ash, dimensions adjustable (2 in each), 2020. 27
VESPER JIA
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LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
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VESPER JIA
“Copy of Réciproque”. Bone ash on canvas, 38_22 in, 2020. 30
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
Throughout history, the female internal reproductive body has been depicted as unruly, chaotic even, with parts that bleed, drip, and leak. These digitised drawings represent a scientific approach at labelling and categorising this anatomy, depicting them graphically as “specimens�; like microscopic cells from which these body parts are constructed. These images symbolise an attempt to keep these areas controlled and measured; contained and regulated; healing that unruly female... but she is still there, within. My work is driven by an interest in female subjectivity across intersections of identity, spaces, body and image. I explore these as gendered surfaces, between the binaries of natural/cultural, desired/desiring and inside/ outside, working mostly through the mediums of drawing, printmaking and photography. My practice is underpinned by theoretical understandings of embodiment, used to question conventional female representations within spheres of the domestic, maternal and erotic in capitalist neoliberal society.
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SALLY BUTCHER sallybutcher.com
“Specimen I Uterus front”. Digitised Anatomical Pen Drawing, 100x100cm, 2017. 32
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
“Specimen Ii Uterus side” . Digitised Anatomical Pen Drawing, 100x100cm, 2017. 33
SALLY BUTCHER
“Specimen Iii Uterus fallopian tubes”. Digitised Anatomical Pen Drawing, 100x100cm, 2017. 34
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
“Specimen II Breast”. Digitised Anatomical Pen Drawing, 100x100cm, 2017. 35
SALLY BUTCHER
“Specimen III Vagina”. Digitised Anatomical Pen Drawing, 100x100cm, 2017. 35 36
Healing chaos honorable m Adriana Helena Indrani Jean Julie and Tatiana 37
s room with mention artists: Furlong, Parriott, Ashe, Chung, Maurin Bashlakova 38
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
“Dry Gloss”. Print, 30,7x42 cm, 2020. 39
JULIE MAURIN
“Kerosene”. Print, 30,7x42 cm, 2020. 40
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
“Off-Cut “. Archival print, oil paint on wood panel with welded steel frame, 18x24 cm, 2020. 41
ADRIANA FURLONG
“Off-Cut 2”. Archival print, oil paint on wood panel with welded steel frame, 18x24 cv, 2020. 42
ISSUE 9 Healing chaos
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HELENA PARRIOTT
“Dissociation 50”. Acrylic on canvas 14.5x10.5in, 2020. 44
LADIES DRAWING CLÜB
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HELENA PARRIOTT
“Dissociation 49”. Acrylic on canvas, 14.5x12in, 2020. 46
INDRANI ASHE
“Like Wendy She Kept Attracting Lost Boys”. Digital collage, 120x80 cm, 2016. 47
JEAN CHUNG
“Cee”. Risograph, 6.5x8.5, 2020. 48
TATIANA BASHLAKOVA
“Gestalt, pt.3”. Acrylics on canvas, 40хx50cm, 2020. 49
NOTES
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LADIES DRAWING CLÜB 02.02.2021- St-Petersburg, Russia