Zelda, Handbag Dentata , Mary Modha
20 x 15 x 7 cm
Zelda, Handbag Dentata (one of a limited edition of 20 Handbag Dentatae) seeks to expose society’s fears of femininity by turning the trivial into a threat and the castrated ‘other’ (according to Freud) into a potential castrating ‘other’.
Please don’t feed her after midnight.
The title refers to the mythical Vagina Dentata. The work takes something trivial, frivolous (a vintage evening bag) and turns it into something unexpectedly menacing. The work is deliberately humorous, but also uses the trope of the feminine monstrous to bring to light the complications associated with the performance of femininity in today’s society. A performance that is both demanded of women and one for which they are also trivialised.
Mary Modha's work looks at the performance of femininity - the ambiguities and absurdities of acting as a woman in a world of myths and men. Starting with everyday objects - domestic furniture and the paraphernalia of feminine performance - she shapes them into the monsters lurking in our psyche. Ancient creatures emerging from the depths, hair in all the wrong places, mirrors that reveal rather than reflect.
The monsters she creates expose and re-appropriate stories about women. Odd, sometimes icky, Mary’s reinterpretations are deliberately ambiguous, Her work is playful and irreverent - making affectionate fun of the feminine performance that society both trivialises and necessitates. There is no right or wrong performance here, only recognition of the performance itself.
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20 x 15 x 7 cm
Zelda, Handbag Dentata (one of a limited edition of 20 Handbag Dentatae) seeks to expose society’s fears of femininity by turning the trivial into a threat and the castrated ‘other’ (according to Freud) into a potential castrating ‘other’.
Please don’t feed her after midnight.
The title refers to the mythical Vagina Dentata. The work takes something trivial, frivolous (a vintage evening bag) and turns it into something unexpectedly menacing. The work is deliberately humorous, but also uses the trope of the feminine monstrous to bring to light the complications associated with the performance of femininity in today’s society. A performance that is both demanded of women and one for which they are also trivialised.
Mary Modha's work looks at the performance of femininity - the ambiguities and absurdities of acting as a woman in a world of myths and men. Starting with everyday objects - domestic furniture and the paraphernalia of feminine performance - she shapes them into the monsters lurking in our psyche. Ancient creatures emerging from the depths, hair in all the wrong places, mirrors that reveal rather than reflect.
The monsters she creates expose and re-appropriate stories about women. Odd, sometimes icky, Mary’s reinterpretations are deliberately ambiguous, Her work is playful and irreverent - making affectionate fun of the feminine performance that society both trivialises and necessitates. There is no right or wrong performance here, only recognition of the performance itself.
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
