ROY presents: Hannah Parrett & Brianna Gluszak
Sad Lady Sad
A prolonged handshake between Brianna Gluszak and Hannah Parrett
The title Sad Lady Sad is not meant for you to assume we are simply sad women, or that all women artists are sad. Femme Triste, a text that translates to Sad Lady in English, is pulled from the painting Le sens propre (The Literal Meaning,1929) by Rene Magritte. Sad Lady Sad is a way for us to poke fun at these tropes in art that frame, quite literally, women as emotional or sad and are deemed for one type of lifestyle or career. Through humorous contradictions, Sad Lady Sad challenges the narrative that abstract art created by women is often emotional at its core.
This collaboration which we often refer to as a prolonged handshake (one that occurs at a six foot distance) is manifested throughout this installation. Taking and borrowing concepts, visual information, formal elements and colors from each other's individual practices we are mashing our two heads, four hands, and years of conversations together to experience a change in narrative surrounding the work.
Gluszak’s work evokes a seductive relationship that cross-contaminates the historical and gendered practices of glass making and textiles. Visually focusing on the shape, line quality and formal elements of each material. Through their shapes and colors, the objects themselves suggest an ability to self-identify specific gendered traits, playing off of the viewers desire to categorize gender. In her sculptures the long stretched out forms reference dominance, power, erection, passivity, and placidity through various bends intentionally executed in the hot glass studio. In textiles evoking softness, warmth, comfort, figurative curves through the use of intentional color fields and distinctly soft-edged shapes.
Parrett’s most recent body of work titled Annie’s Dilemma, explores icons and symbols within Western landscapes gleaned from the 1940s Annie Oakley comic and Deadwood Dick dime novels. Through paintings and drawings, silhouetted versions of the mythic ‘cowgirl/boy’ are pulled from these sources to investigate the performative elements of heroism and masculinity in popular figures of the time such as Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane. Western folklore becomes a reference point where Parrett explores her own personal experiences growing up in the Black Hills to work through the contradictions that these stories hold in their depiction of the outlaw and colonialist. In this process, Parrett defamiliarizes herself with her past to search for moments where uncanny recognition of a fabricated identity creates feelings of alienation and rebirth.
ROY talked with Brianna & Hannah Saturday, February 13 at 2:30. Missed the Zoom? Click here to watch the full discussion on YouTube!