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And what a girl this is: The subtle yet powerful artworks of Sarah Maple recently displayed at her London solo show at Aubin Gallery, London, picks up the ever prevailing question on what it is to be a woman in today’s world. The British artist’s show offers a nuanced, confrontational, intelligent, as well as amusing visual examination of the issue of gender. It’s been five years since she won the “New Sensations” competition run by the UK’s Channel 4 in conjunction with the Saatchi Gallery. And it’s been almost four years since her debut solo exhibition at SaLon Contemporary, Notting Hill, featuring a headline picture showing a Muslim woman cradling a pig and causing an uproar at the Muslim community. |
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“she isn’t afraid of putting herself in the center”
OH, GIRL—IT’S A GIRL! INVESTIGATING WITH SARAH MAPLE
By Birgit Rabl
And what a girl this is: The subtle yet powerful artworks of Sarah Maple recently displayed at her London solo show at Aubin Gallery, London, picks up the ever prevailing question on what it is to be a woman in today’s world. The British artist’s show offers a nuanced, confrontational, intelligent, as well as amusing visual examination of the issue of gender. It’s been five years since she won the “New Sensations” competition run by the UK’s Channel 4 in conjunction with the Saatchi Gallery. And it’s been almost four years since her debut solo exhibition at SaLon Contemporary, Notting Hill, featuring a headline picture showing a Muslim woman cradling a pig and causing an uproar at the Muslim community. Coming from a mixed religious and cultural background, those works referred to her own upbringing as a Muslim in Eastbourne–the “whitest place in the world”–and posing questions about Muslim culture and identity. It brought her Islamic wrath, lazy comparisons with Tracey Emin, and even death threats.
“It’s A Girl,” curated by Beverly Knowles, doesn’t have a religious content and is less provocative at a surface level than Maple’s earlier work, but the message is similarly powerful and ultimately explosive. In her artwork, photos and light boxes, wallpaper and oil paintings, she isn’t afraid of putting herself in the center. Like other female and feminist artists before her, the artist, feminist, and activist uses herself as a model in a very precise way. Styling, look, mimics, gesture are all under her control to convey those very particular emotions that cannot be mediated through speech between herself and somebody else. This makes Maple’s message direct; nothing is lost in translation. Her message is serious stuff aiming at contemporary taboos, but instead of shaking her fist fiercely she does it with a lightness of touch and a humorous twist.
For her most recent Disney Princess series, Maple dressed herself as fairy tale figures such as the Little Mermaid, Belle of Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, and Jasmine of Aladdin and put these figures in traditionally male contemporary settings. At first glance, the photos are funny images of fairy tale beauties as a football manager, wearing a pink tiara during open-heart surgery, and running a boardroom meeting. The looks on their faces are priceless. Turn around: there comes the line-up of princesses for their graduation photos. Underneath the pink ruffles lies a serious message about girls who are brought up to become the passive beauties of fantasy. “My motivation is to empower the princesses,” Maple says, “to bring Cinderella into Parliament and into operation rooms. I want to encourage those young girls: you can do everything you want!” The Disney Company, as a conveyer of ingrained cultural division, serves as a perfect example for pervasive constructions of gender stereotypes. While her work is not explicitly articulate gender inequality, it brings to the fore (un)conscious realization of gender construction. Her approach is to look at how these inequalities are manifested, pinpointing and contextualizing them in a way that is surprising, disturbing, and often funny. “Comedy,” says Maple, “is a great tool to give audience food for thought. That’s why I choose to portray my conceptual ideas through a light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek approach.”
Whilst the Disney Princess series marks the rather entertaining part of her the exhibition, Maple’s way of revealing taboos also contains potential for explosive provocation. Make note of works such as Votes for Women, a close-up photograph of a “vajazzle” (a woman’s waxed and bejeweled pubic area) with sequins in the colors of the suffrage movement, or It’s a Girl, an oil painting of the artist dressed as a baby in diapers, arms on her hips, and sporting a defiant glance. The most complex and engrossing work of Sarah Maple’s show is Menstruate with Pride, a painting in which the artist self-consciously stands in the middle of a mixed crowd, wearing a white dress, and showing off bright-red stains from menstrual blood in her lap. The people around her look at her in disgust and embarrassment, shocked by what they see. Most can’t stand the view and turn away, but a young girl doesn’t seem to be bothered at all. She looks at the bloodstain with interest, making her an accomplice of the artist, who raises her right arm to a fist and strongly looks at the beholder. The artist leaves the outcome unclear, but what is clear is that these are works by a talented and sincere young feminist artist with a questioning eye for traditionally accepted notions of identity, gender, culture, and religion. Watch out for more of Sarah Maple.
Sarah Maple, Snow White the Scientist, 2011. Light box, 33 x 22 in. Courtesy of the artist and Aubin Gallery, London
Sarah Maple, Votes for Women, 2011. C-Type photograph 33 x 50 in. Courtesy of the artist and Aubin Gallery, London.
