Stripped Bark
Stripped Bark is a group of working women artists who are passionately committed to expressing their creativity using a variety of media. In this visually exciting exhibition, the artists confront issues facing women in the middle years of life. Western Society’s current obsession with youth throws up the fear for the older woman of gradually becoming invisible with each passing year. These women refuse to be invisible, for they were the generation which argued, negotiated, fought for the empowerment of women and they are not going to disappear quietly into the grey margins of society. They understand only too well the slogan,” the personal is political”.
Their art is not always comfortable. Assumptions are challenged. In this exhibition there is a sculpture of a hand lovingly holding a uterus, a torso of barbed wire, clothes torn and re-woven, mirrored glass fragments which shimmer in the light; designed to draw the viewer in closer art both dazzling and dangerous. There are robust paintings dealing with themes of alienation and desolation with landscape as the vehicle. Sculptural bags with messages for us about issues of access to the “countryside” these works are all thought provoking and aesthetically satisfying.
Helen Kippax
Doreen Kellett
May McWilliams
Rosemary Stratford
Antonia Stanford
Ann Claydon
Sue Fox
