The Hybrid Suite drawings and sculptures all began when I started bringing old chairs and lampshades home from hard rubbish collections and neighbourhood nature strips. I was always on the lookout for great shapes to use as subject matter for the drawing classes I was teaching at the time. It soon dawned on me that these gorgeous old pieces of furniture shared the same curvaceous lines as a woman’s body. Every new find I brought home consequently became one of ‘my girls’.
It was real food for thought; the idea of female beauty and eroticism paralleled in furniture, and it appealed strongly to my sense of humour. I saw in my chairs their curvy legs, perfect smooth shoulders, nipped in waists and other voluptuous shapes. In my lamp shades I saw corsets of satin, tassels and frills, and before I knew it I had a riot of burlesque furniture companions in my studio!
The more drawings I made, the more parallels I saw. When I saw discarded or broken chairs on hard rubbish and nature strips, I now saw them as women. Why were they broken, who’d broken them, or why were they discarded? Was it just because they were old and unfashionable? So began a whole new train of thought about abandoned women and domestic abuse. This resulted in the triptych Beyond the Threshold.
It was real food for thought; the idea of female beauty and eroticism paralleled in furniture, and it appealed strongly to my sense of humour. I saw in my chairs their curvy legs, perfect smooth shoulders, nipped in waists and other voluptuous shapes. In my lamp shades I saw corsets of satin, tassels and frills, and before I knew it I had a riot of burlesque furniture companions in my studio!
The more drawings I made, the more parallels I saw. When I saw discarded or broken chairs on hard rubbish and nature strips, I now saw them as women. Why were they broken, who’d broken them, or why were they discarded? Was it just because they were old and unfashionable? So began a whole new train of thought about abandoned women and domestic abuse. This resulted in the triptych Beyond the Threshold.
