Zoë Buckman: The Box

24 Jan-7 Mar 2020

Overview

Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is delighted to present, No bleach thick enough, a new work by Zoë Buckman commissioned for The Box. Running from 24 January to 7 March 2020, this will be the artist’s first solo project in the UK.

Buckman’s artistic practice draws on an explicitly feminist perspective, exploring gender, identity and violence. Her multi-disciplinary approach incorporates sculpture, textiles, ceramics and photography as well as large-scale public installations. No bleach thick enough belongs to the artist’s ongoing series entitled Show Me Your Bruises Then. This body of work, comprising text embroidered onto vintage textiles such as dishcloths and table runners, draws on the artist’s own experience to explore gendered violence in the domestic sphere, both physical and psychological. Buckman's use of text, intensely personal and often confessional in tone, establishes an intimate and emotionally charged relationship with the viewer. Her words draw on diverse sources, from the lyrics of hip-hop or Keats, to the work of her late mother, the playwright Jennie Buckman, as well as her own writings.

In this new work, fragments of text are embroidered onto two vintage handkerchiefs, each suspended within the space of The Box, one slightly obscuring the other: 'but as the pill kicks in', neatly embroidered in black capital letters and 'he was waiting in her kitchen', hand embroidered in loose mohair thread. By choosing textiles traditionally used and decorated by women, the artist makes visible labour that often goes unnoticed. Each vintage piece bears traces of its past, pointing to a history of oppression, but also to the need for, and to the comfort of intergenerational dialogue. Scrunched up in a pocket or tucked into a sleeve, the handkerchiefs recall their intimacy with the body, whilst their function points to the mess of tears and blood, and a desire to mop these up. In contrast, the work’s title alludes to a harsher form of housework, with the image of bleach used to explore the ways in which domestic violence is erased.