Personifying Pleasure
Curated by Katelyn Kean
Struggling through the COVID-19 pandemic placed my mental health in the lowest crater it has ever been in. Acknowledging the fear and day-to-day anxiety that cozied up and made a new home nestled between my lungs and chest felt like a brutal realization of pain and vulnerability. I sought out the nearest comforting thought I could find, what could ease the pain that I am feeling? Taking time for myself, exploring creative outlets and playing in the world of making, jamming out to a new playlist, personal pleasure, or an embrace from a loved one? Brainstorming these small acts of pleasure brought comfort and the realization that pleasure is a necessary act of self love.
Isolated in my self-care journey to reacquaint myself with small acts of pleasure, I couldn’t help but reimagine Pleasure as that best friend you would call up after perfecting the air guitar solo in your favorite song, or taking that first sip of coffee in the morning, or reaching one hell of a climax. Would we sit around and laugh until we cried at every relatable Tik Tok or strike a funny pose in our new favorite outfit? Would we find peace during an evening stroll around the neighborhood, content with watching the fireflies as the sun dips below the horizon? Or walk through town with an aura of indifference because we are the main characters of this movie? Personifying Pleasure is self love in every sense.
Christine Bush Roman, Her Beacon
Mixed media on a cradled panel, 2021.
18” x 24” $800.00
Email stayhomegallery@gmail.com for purchasing information
Artist Statement: Art itself is pleasure personified. The process of making forces the artist to be in the moment. You must embrace the tactile experience of the color, the texture, the grit, and the goop. The materials move with the whole body in a dance of frustration, excitement, and anticipation, working towards the ultimate moment of satisfaction and joy at the finished piece. As the viewer you are able to witness the evidence of the journey, take part in the pleasure, and transform that pleasure into your own experience.
Lisa Simms, Please
Mixed materials, 2020.
24"x15" $1,000.00
Email stayhomegallery@gmail.com for purchasing information
Artist Statement: Work that played with the idea of traditional feminine stereotypes and how those manifest within the world of the internet.
Helen Dryden, Laura's New Shell Suit 3
Acrylic on canvas, 2021.
16.54” x 23.23” $600.00
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Artist Statement: This painting was inspired by a photo of my friend Laura when she was a young teenage woman in the 1990s. The sheer delight of having a new shell suit was radiating out of her. I was attracted to the billowing effect of the voluminous polyester fabric and the graphic patterns of the shell suit, and I remembered when they were the coolest fashion statement (before people started laughing at them). I wanted to portray that vibrant feeling of ecstasy, when you get what you want and you feel amazing.
Sophia Munic, Rattles
Fabric yarn polyfill beads, 2020.
Dimensions vary upon interaction, $30.00 per rattle.
Email stayhomegallery@gmail.com for purchasing information
Artist Statement: I create (interactive) textile objects that observe the intersection of pattern making, play and comfort. In my work I aim to extend our vocabulary of whimsy. By interacting with the work as a means to understand its “function”, these objects activate our sense of wonder. Through my most recent series, Playful Creatures, I theorize what children's toys would look like if our upbringing was impacted by the socialization of our assigned gender at birth. These objects ask how the function of play would be designed differently if genderfluid. The creatures themselves are objects adjacent to earth, both familiar and unfamiliar. I often use found materials, altering toys as if to put a kaleidoscope onto nostalgia that allows the viewer to project fragments of memories onto the piece. I use and reuse materials from past sculptures as a way to manipulate material and reference past concepts. I am inspired by the way that children's toys, quilts, and textile objects both facilitate vulnerability and operate as tactile art objects.
Dara Weyna, Comfort Me
Collage and mixed media on panel, 2020.
14"x 20" $300.00
Email stayhomegallery@gmail.com for purchasing information
Artist Statement: Color is a language that creates a visceral experience and I am fascinated by the way in which certain colors relate to or contend with each other; how sometimes an unlikely pairing can make a really beautiful connection. My work focuses on the abstraction and exaggeration of the human form; bodies distilled down to colorful, biomorphic curves. I think of these soft shapes as pleasurable moments of comfort; like when we feel at ease with the skin we're in or being held in a loving embrace. Employing color in a strong yet playful way, gives these figures their voice of self-love. Pleasure is joyful and curvy, colorful and confident.
Lisa Simms, Apathy!
Rug, Faux Fur and Hairspray, 2020.
3'x2', $5,000.00
Email stayhomegallery@gmail.com for purchasing information
Artist Statement: Artist Statement: Work that played with the idea of traditional feminine stereotypes and how those manifest within the world of the internet.
Meredith Elder, To Trust Yourself Fully
Found object, paper, ink, graphite, woodcut print, acrylic, and oil mixed media, 2019.
18”x 24” $300.00
Email stayhomegallery@gmail.com for purchasing information
Artist Statement: Through bright color and contorting forms, these works focus on pleasure existing, and often thriving, within the incubating nature of Southern microcosms. These paintings acknowledge that in the South, embracing pleasure can exude in truly unique fashion - in reaction and avoidance of pervasive cultural restriction and within intense heat. The contented, femme figures within crowded collage and rigid grid speak to the pursuit of gratification despite the noise.
Anna Pugh, Flower Bottoms
Oil on canvas, 2021.
18” x 24”, $1,300.00
Email stayhomegallery@gmail.com for purchasing information
Artist Statement: These works are a part of a new and growing set of paintings which are created by layering close up imagery of bodies with washes of warm paint and gestural strokes of writing. I’ve given the series the nickname “Summertime Diary”. Creating them has served as a way to release my own thoughts and emotions during time in my studio, and embedding that energy into material form. This work holds the softer pleasures of nostalgia. I see nostalgia as gratitude in the past tense, or the existence of pleasure in memory.
Pre-pandemic, I had been creating work which studies imagery used in depicting girls on social media, but as the world was sent into an introspective and withdrawn period in 2020, I noticed I began painting with a sort of longing for connection, and my paintings became almost like warm and nostalgic odes to closeness and intimacy. As I watch these new works unfold in real time, I’m noticing an evolution back to works I made as a teenager, works that relate back to my own body and the relationships between these themes of connection, longing, and the bewildering vulnerability and strength of our bodies.
Amrita Dhillon, Ekstase
Oil on Canvas, 2021.
20” x 27.5” $3,028.00
Artist Statement: The painting presented here, titled Ekstase is part of a series of paintings based on classic cinema: a series that explores painting as parallel to viewing, almost as a form of active viewing that translates the psychological experience of watching movies through color and form. This particular painting is based on a seminal scene from the movie Ekstase from 1933- a Czech erotic film starring Hedy Lamarr. Apart from the daring nudity, it also featured the first female orgasm captured in a non-pornographic film. While the orgasm scene is perhaps the most obvious evidence of female pleasure in the film, it is the figure of Hedy swimming in a lake on a sunny day, undisturbed and absolutely content, which struck me as the ultimate symbol for female pleasure. Freedom begets pleasure, and an undisturbed woman is the most profound expression of it.
14 Personifying Pleasure Suggestions
Feeling inspired to spark pleasure in your life? Explore the list below for some ideas!
Bake your favorite sweet (or savory) treat. Enjoy fresh out of the oven.
Money can’t buy you happiness, but cutting out a bunch of pretend paper dollars and throwing them into the air can spark joy (we encourage recycling!)
Get creative! Grab a pencil and paper and create a continuous line drawing of the nearest object.
Share this exhibit with a friend you wish you spoke to more often, start a conversation about the artwork you’ve seen.
Stand in the mirror and power pose for 1 minute, yeah you’re a bad b*tch!
Rock out to some killer tunes using Pleasure’s Playlist or a favorite of your own!
Practice self care and acts of pleasure routinely.
Donate (time, resources, or money) to an organization that cares about what you care about!
Create your own Rage Room. Time to blow off some steam, grab a bat, safety goggles, and a few tea cups from the thrift store.
Recall a moment where you felt truly untethered. Write down three adjectives that describe how you felt and where you were.
Imagine yourself as all your personified pleasures. How would you act? What would you look like?
Identify a goal you want to accomplish, now yell it as loud as you can. Manifest, baby!
Can you make it through all of these reimagined acts of pleasure?
Grab your favorite personal form of physical pleasure (or don't) and go to town ;)
This exhibition explores how acts of fulfillment and the essence of joy transcend the individual from the perspective of women and non-binary artists.