Rocking Rookies at Tatjana Pieters

Artists: Felix Beaudry, Dodi Espinosa, Elena Minyeyevtseva, Deirdre Sargent

Exhibition title: Rocking Rookies

Venue: Tatjana Pieters, Ghent, Belgium

Date: August 25 – September 29, 2019

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Tatjana Pieters

‘Rocking Rookies’ is a tribute to beauty, imagination, craftmanship, the bodily presence, colour, decoration, history and mythology. The artists in the show present a physical approach to a specific medium, creating a personal iconography & language that is grounded in a spiritual and intuitive connection with the world we live in.

The necessary slowness in the process of the materials they use – clay, textile, drawing & narrative based video – stands in contrast with the pace of our digital society while also making use of its technological enhancements. The return to the physical core of creation reconnects us with ancient spirits and traditions from a whole new perspective.

Playing with the rules of kitsch & camp, their work goes beyond current canons in contemporary art, redirecting our attention to the past to inspire the future. They are clearly engaged with urgent matters of our time, but have chosen to express it through an abundance of visual freedom, technique and phantasy, making this show an anthropological celebration of life and human potential.

FELIX BEAUDRY

‘This group of knit tapestries based off of my image of Amazon warriors from Greek mythology. Growing up I knew two things about Amazon warriors: that they were an all female society centered around fighting, and that they cut off a breast in order to better shoot their bow and arrows. As someone who was born female but inclined to traditionally male activities, and who later went on to cut off both my breasts, I both identified with them and looked up to them.

Unfortunately one is not supposed to identify with Amazon warriors, they’re supposed to be afraid of them. In Greek mythology they represented the barbaric outsider. That hasn’t always been the case as stories of Amazons have been retold and manipulated over the centuries, but I’ve always felt let down by visual representations of Amazons. My understanding of Amazon warriors is that they’re filthy, muscled, ruthless, sexually aggressive and abusive, and had undergone primitive surgeries on their chest. In contrast, they are often represented as engaging in battle but otherwise toned, delicate and double breasted. I wanted to see Amazons as the heroes of my imagination, not as scary outsiders or unrealistically pretty.

To that end, I decided to make the Amazons in my drawings more current and familiar by invoking cowboys in the American wild west. I inserted burly women into scenes of riding, fighting and flirting that would be at home in any western movie. I like that cowboys get to be rough and barbaric, roguish and living on the outskirts of society, even criminal and yet they’re still acceptable role models for what little boys should aspire to. By merging the archetype of the cowboy with the centuries mythology surrounding Amazon warriors, they become both more rugged and familiar.’ – Felix Beaudry, August 2019

The tapestries are made with a Stoll Knitting Machine. This machine is not easily accessible to hand knitters or artists because they cost a lot and take specialised knowledge to run correctly.

Felix Beauty (CA, 1996) lives & works in Brooklyn, NY. He has a BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design. Felix engages yarn and fiber in many ways, he makes textiles by hand as well as programming textiles to be made on industrial machines. He also uses drawing and painting as a large part of his process. In his work Felix retells mythology in a way that represents his understanding of gender and sexuality and how they relate to the body. Recent exhibitions including his work are: Topian Gardens, ltd los angeles at Gallery Vacancy, CONDO, Shanghai (CN), Nesting Habits, organized by Ilana Savdie, ltd los angeles, New York (USA) and Fresh Fruit, Curated by Benjamin Tischer at SITUATIONS, New York (USA). His work is already part of collections in the US and Argentina.

DODI ESPINOSA

‘The question of power in relation to aesthetics is a mind boggling question for me, thats why I make objects that seem to have a very personal approach to beauty. The result in general can be seen as sturdy, loaded, heavy, material, subversive and even kitsch. I see the flux of globalization as an opportunity to explore new approaches to aesthetics and arts in general, I like to look at the current situation as a great chance to challenge our standards by getting out of our comfort zones. I use syncretism as a tool to mix up meanings, creating powerful objects that seem to be mythically charged; this explains my interest in archeology, when art was strongly connected to rituals, that’s why I like to speculate with references to universal art history. Lately I’m mixing up these references by using irony or satire in order to reflect on our chaotic present and paradigms from a humorist point of view. Finally, I believe that my work is strongly connected to my persona and life experiences, and like myself, is in constant change and evolution, in other words, I don’t like to get bored with what I do.’ – Dodi Espinosa

Dodi Espinosa ( MX, 1985) lives & works in Antwerp. He grew up in the Mexican Teotihuacan region, a rural environment with a strong cultural heritage because of its world-famous archeological sites, This environments a big influence to his approach to arts, the importance of the crafts as well as the political engagement. In 2002 Espinosa moved to Spain where he studied Art at the Escola Massana in Barcelona for over 4 years focusing mainly on conceptual and performative art. He decided to leave art school to continue as a self taught artist with an independent and out of the box approach to arts. Recent exbibitions are: Casa de monos I, Trampoline, Antwerp (BE) Independent Brussels with Trampoline, Brussels (BE) , Casa de monos II, Intemporal, Antwerp (BE), Transform the local, poetry must be made by all, Mu.Zee. In 2020 his work will be part of a group show at Fries Museum Leeuwarden. His work is in private collections in Belgium and the Netherlands and in the museum collection of Mu.zee, Ostend (BE).

ELENA MINYEYEVTSEVA

Elena uses drawing as a main medium to create a mythological world around and about the human body. She researches the borders between design and intuitive process.

‘Having spent years in design, I looked for an opposite way of creating. I wished to lose the control of choice and taste. Using the unconsciousness made me become a spectator myself. My practice now includes different types of approaching the drawing process. From automatic drawing where I find the hidden language and symbols, towards the long physical sculpting of the drawing. Design, I use as a tool to reshape and give the most abstract ideas a final form. The attraction towards the human complexity of the mind and body makes me create and recreate metaphorical portraits.’ – Elena Minyeyevtseva

Elena Minyeyevtseva (UKR, 1989) lives & works in Antwerp.

DEIRDRE SARGENT

Phantasmagorical moments of an female character acting abstractly at home have served as the cornerstone for many of Sargent’s videos. A question generally remains whether these moments are liberating or futile. At times she is enamoured by the possibility of entropy, but there is doubt whether the idea this surrealist escape might be another pre-packaged stock experience like a spa day or a tourist vacation with its equally regimented ideas of “exotic” biomes. However, the “stay-cation tourist” in these videos show an alternative relationship to fantasy that invites more empathy. The character encourages us to question where spaces for fantastic projection exist—where do we live our sanctioned, imaginary lives?

‘Tigers in Toyland’ (2018) was filmed in a unique Airbnb in upstate NY. The guest apartment is the old servants’ quarters that the owner bedecked in tiger theme. The estate is a Scottish Castle replica built originally for a realist painter in the early 19th century. It was purchased by a wealthy family, all of whom have died expect one son. The son recalls his parents having to disassemble a 1910 Ford Model T on the second floor because the artist had built a grand hall to drive in. The now aging son has since squalor all the family wealth and lives in shambles. As a last ditch effort, he has tried to revive the compound by starting a zoo. There are hand painted signs on the street leading up to the dilapidated castle, Bengal Tigers in the chain-link pen outside the kitchen, foxes in dog crates, wild peacocks, zebras grazing in a field, and more. The video’s character and narrative is built off of this bizarre and fascinating setting.

Deirdre Sargent (US, 1985) lives & works in Brooklyn, New York. She works with video and sculpture and has shown in numerous exhibitions and screenings nationally and internationally including MOCA, North Miami; AC Institute, NYC; House of Collections, Seoul, Korea; Konstanet, Tallinn, Estonia; The Ryder, London; UltraStudio, West Hollywood, CA; Videodrome, Paris; 315 Gallery, NYC. Sargent holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Yale University School of Art.