INHALE is a cultural platform where artists are presented, where great projects are given credit and readers find inspiration. Think about Inhale as if it were a map: we can help you discover which are the must-see events all over the world, what is happening now in the artistic and cultural world as well as guide you through the latest designers’ products. Inhale interconnects domains that you are interested in, so that you will know all the events, places, galleries, studios that are a must-see. We have a 360 degree overview on art and culture and a passion to share.
P.P.O.W will present an installation of sculptures by Jessica Stoller. In Spoil, Stoller uses clay and the grotesque as a vehicle to explore the constructed, often idealized world of femininity, gathering imagery across cultural lines and histories, often fixating on the subjugation of the female body. Porcelain is her primary media, a historically weighted material that is inevitably linked to desire, mystery and consumption. The sculptures in Spoil spill out of decorative materiality into the Rococo maximalist mentality of pageantry, pomp and artifice that are often overlooked as frivolous ploys. Through the synthesis of the symbolic female, culturally, historically and bodily, Stoller allows feminist language to expand within her work leaving room for subversion, defiance and play.
Stoller uses a myriad of techniques to create her highly detailed works. First, hand-building the porcelain forms and incorporating porcelain slip, or liquid clay to coat fabric which burns away through controlled firing, leaving draping lace and flesh-like fabric ribbons. Stoller’s knowledge of the medium allows her to manipulate the clay creating a wide-range of effects: piped cakes, dripping syrup and rows of spikes and interlocking chains undergo multiple firings to develop each richly colored surface. The resulting works embody a powerful sense of oppositions which blur the lines between real and imitated, normal and abnormal, perceived beauty and the bodily abject.
The installation is comprised of sculptures ranging from tabletop scaled busts to elaborate multi-piece works. In the center of the gallery Stoller presents a large still life that is reminiscent of French grand dining practices of the 18th century, when porcelain replaced sugar sculptures, becoming essential in creating lavish table decorations of allegorical and mythological themes. Stoller’s tableau seduces the viewer into its bountiful tiers of carnal illusions where nipples become macaroons. The intricate assemblage pays homage to religious and historic iconographies (16th century Vanitas paintings, Marie Antoinette’s breast cup) and contemporary semiotics of abject hands stuffed with lace and adorned with long curling embellished nails, oversized anime eye pendants and silver plated hybrid antlered skulls. Stoller’s work is grounded in dual appearances; mobilizing our vision of the grotesque in opposition of contemporary societal controls that still plague the feminine body.
via ppowgallery.com