Artifact 17: Flesh Cake
Antique bamboo steamer, piped silicone, ceramic doll parts, lace fabric cut-outs, clay ‘cherries’ wax candles, latex, acrylic paint. Approx. 10 inches in diameter
Inspired by the artist Anna Barlow and their ‘Sweet Treat Ceramics’
The commodification of ‘cute’ and how easily it slips into overconsumption, excessiveness, dystopian maximalism. “It is here that Sianne Ngai’s ‘ugly feelings’ slither in; the strange mix of fascination and revulsion, attraction and repulsion that haunt aesthetic encounters with trauma. We do not escape or reach understanding. The allure encases us, like a sticky residue that won’t scrub off.
Pathetic.
Indeed. Clinging to things that harm us, willingly … we are attracted to the visual representations of these feelings because we recognise the suffering and hope that its embodiment will release the ugly from within us. But as Gown’s display exhibits, the mourning is not catharsis but entrapment, imprisoning her, Moult, Furless, Meatmouth and even me in ambivalence.
The grotesque had been dolled up as spectacle, and to my shame, I was caught staring.” - Bleeding Between the Lines, Isabelle Gardner.