“Those who should venture”
The title to this collaborative artwork (between glass artist Carmen Simmonds and myself) “Those who should venture”, comes from an advertisement that the New Zealand Company put in English newspapers outlining the sort of traits that would be necessary for women intending to emigrate to the colonies.
This artwork represents the hardships endured by those pioneer women in early Aotearoa. It explores the congruence between the corset and those women’s’ redefinition of the landscape, where the wire fence formed boundaries between cultures and defined physical limits, and the wires on the women’s’ undergarments controlled and defined their femininity and their previous cultural identity.
The glass top explores the fragility and strength of those women and has detail of lace, kowhai flowers and fern fronds. The woven “skirt” represents the transition from mountain to sea with grasses and seeds indicative of those regions.
This artwork debuted at the Whanganui Art Awards 2010 and is available for exhibition or purchase.
