13% Painting (Abstract Representation)

2010

automotive paint on meranti plywood
1190H x 595W x 13.6mmD

Series: Interior Frames

'In the black high-gloss surface of 13% Painting (Abstract Representation), a small cut-out focuses attention on an exposed white gallery wall. The work presents as a well-executed, monochromatic, non-objective wall-piece but its composition and title shift from the obvious aesthetic dualities of black/white, solid/void, matt/reflective - to questions of ratio and proportion, presence and absence, quantity and quality, with a glaring reality check. The viewer reflected in the black ‘skin’ of the work is without genitals; the white slot, hung at groin height, absorbs and excises the sex organs. The vacant slot, a symbol of female gender, is a snapshot of representation. The proportion absent (13%) represents the standard percentage of women artists in stables of leading dealer galleries worldwide and on ‘Art Power’ lists; a disparity also mirrored in Boardrooms and Governments. Sexism and sexual innuendos unfold and become palpable; thus the work itself becomes a criticism of the condition it is trapped in.'