kendal murray

and black safety pins



and sewing pins

and stainless steel safety pins


sewing needles, wire, buttons

and stainless steel pins

binding wire, rice paper

and stainless steel safety pins

steel needles, enamel


and steel pins with heat patina

and sewing needles

and a wax form covered with rice paper

Compulsive Beauty
Beaty Gallery 01/08/1995
The experience of beautification as a socially compelling idea that provokes obsessive psychological compulsions, actions and responses forms the underlying concept for the artwork in the exhibition "Compulsive Beauty".
A series of charcoal drawings on Japanese paper titled "Strong Attractions, Subtle Repulsions" was exhibited with a collection of individually titled fetishised handbag sculptures. The drawings and the handbags are designed to evoke experiences of abjection, desire, sexuality and the sublime.
The Japanese paper on which the drawings were created, evoke experiences of flesh. The emotive charcoal lines move around the space, suggestive of both energy and hair like patterns, whilst evoking the underlying tensions of the unconscious.
The handbags, embellished with pins, safety pins, needles, fine wires, and greased and varnished papers, represent the ultimate accessory for the commodity conscious woman. Used both to adorn a woman's body and define her as feminine, the handbags reveal both the construction and performance of gender as well as the ritualistic process used by woman to create herself as both subject of desire and object of her own desire. Titles of the pinned handbag sculptures include, "Dangerous Beauty", "Flirt", "Compulsive Beauty", "Veiled Beauty", "Temptress", "Sweetheart" and "Is Beauty Your Weapon?" speak of a woman's experience as she is fashioned by the concept of beauty, and fashions herself through the activities of beautification.
Kendal Murray, 1995

wire and buttons.
19cm x 18cm x 5cm

65cm x 21cm x 7cm
SHOWS
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Sydney Contemporary
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Imagined Worlds
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In the Smile of a Tree
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Interconnected
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Summertime, Pantomime
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Renewal
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Material Properties
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Sydney Contemporary
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Reflections of a Fading a Sky
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Afterglow, Adagio
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Blue Bird, Overheard
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Show and Tell
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Between Rhyme and Reason
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The Collector
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Flights Of Fancy
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Stage Whispers
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Imagining The Self
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Short Stories and Tall Tales
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An Enchanted Life
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Walking Sideways And Smiling
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In Search Of Childish Pleasures
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Night Fictions
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Every Day Dreams
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Secret Histories
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She Starts By Removing Her Face
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Circulatory Pleasures
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Compulsive Beauty