Helen Gorrill

Awesome artist and awesome concept please check this WOMAN website.





My current work - The Seven Deadly Sins: Lust (A 'Lust' for Control)

An exhibition of drawings that aims to question gendered submission and domination within a 'Christian' relationship

This exhibition of drawings aims to question gendered submission and domination within a 'Christian' relationship. Christianity has given us the controlled and submissive image of Woman, and throughout most of art history Women would appear to have been presented as passive and controlled objects of the Male gaze.

In order to destabilise 'gender' in my work, I have "de-constructed" the wording from a booklet containing contemporary Christian guidelines, commanding couples in terms of their gender and roles of submission, domination and control. Swapping the words he/she:-
Would he make a good wife? (How does he show submissiveness in the family and congregation?) Ephesians 5:21, 22.
Would she make a good husband? (How does she handle any authority she may have?) Matthew 20:25, 26

In total, I have created around 120 life drawings and 100 ink drawings in preparation for this exhibition. My ink drawings are created using water based ink on etching paper. This creates a bleeding and merging of colour within a finely defined area, intended to demonstrate the fluidity of gender. Relationships can be destroyed by inequality and power imbalances, and it is my intention that the colours used represent this potential damage.

My drawings of the female figures are erect, dominant and powerful in stance, compared with the smaller, vulnerable and submissive male figures beneath them. All my male figures are drawn from life, either in Amsterdam on location or in the life studio. From the perspective of a female artist working from the female gaze, it has become apparent that sexual representations of men have can cause concern for notions of dominant masculinity because male power is tied to looking, rather than being the object of the gaze.

The female figures have been developed from photographs of anonymous models. The female model herself represents (albeit in degraded form) a semblance of absolute female power. My females are all wearing stilettos, because high heeled shoes signify power and domination. Facial features have been masked or blanked out in order to provide anonymity; a professional dominatrix I interviewed for my research claims that a masked face provides the ultimate power, and entices submissiveness in her male clients.

It is my intention that this body will raise questions about gendered submission and control, and open up a discourse that challenges freedom of expression and the notion of blasphemy.

This exhibition can be seen at the FDA Degree show, University of Cumbria (Brampton Road campus), Carlisle from Wednesday 10th June to Thursday 18th June, with the private view 5.45 - 9.pm on Friday 12th June (please contact for further information). At the same time, I am exhibiting postcard prints of this body of work at New York's APW Gallery.

Helen Gorrill, May 2009