“I Have Cooked for Men I Should’ve Poisoned” — HEDGE Gallery Presents Sarah Curry’s Servitude

HEDGE Gallery presents a poignant and timely exhibition focused on themes of domesticity, labor, and the societal expectations, as they have been placed upon women from the beginning of recorded history to the present. Servitude features paintings, sculptures, and monoprints by Cleveland artist and educator Sarah Curry, all begging us to question: who is serving, who do they serve, and how did this situation come to be?  And why do women always assume this role? Inspired by graffiti seen spray painted on a wall in Europe bearing the provocative quote “I have cooked for men I should’ve poisoned,” Servitude emerged as the artist’s latest body of work channeling feminine rage into art that is daring and unapologetic in its message. This cunning quote is both poetic and painful, and powerful enough to lure this feminist like a siren to the opening night of the exhibition. In Servitude, Curry brings together the work of nine additional women whose art explores the main topic at hand —the reframing of service labor into powerful expressions of resilience and resistance. Throughout the exhibition, domestic artifacts such as serving trays, utensils, and tea sets are scattered about and reinvented as works of art which highlight the role of women as invisible caretakers and domestic servants. This exhibition says the quiet part out loud, challenging audiences to confront the uncomfortable realities of the world we’ve created, and demand change —or risk having their heads served on a platter.

Sarah Curry is a painter, illustrator and printmaker who has been teaching art at Brush High School in Lyndhurst since 2001. She received a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and an MA from Case Western Reserve University. Curry began her career teaching art at the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1998-2003; this experience ignited Curry’s passion to teach and eventually enroll in the MA program at Case where, thereafter, she became an artist in her own right.

In the HEDGE exhibition Servitude, Curry’s works are arranged in five sub-categories of various mediums and aesthetic styles. The first of the groupings, Barbie Loves Ken is a delightfully devilish series of seven monoprints featuring the iconic Barbie doll serving Ken’s severed head on a platter, donning a beautiful smile, set against antiquated lace doily backdrops. The juxtaposition of these items creates a clever visual pun of the objects and their purpose. With witty names such as Head of the Household and A Women’s Work is Never Done, these monoprints are inspired by Curry’s lifelong positive relationship with Barbie, who she sees as a strong, self-sufficient, independent woman. Ken, on the other hand, she thought of as an afterthought. As a child, when she questioned Ken’s relationship to Barbie, Curry’s mother told her, “Think of him as an accessory. If he makes Barbie look good and feel good, he can stick around, but as soon as he doesn’t, he gets left behind.” 

Serving Invisible Labor is another group of monoprints which, in contrast, are mounted on wooden boards in the shape of serving trays with a trompe l’oeil visual affect. All are in a classic Hermès orange color and feature cleaning gloves striking a variety of hand gestures, accompanied by cheeky, gold-stamped titles (another nod to the Hermès brand) such as eat crow, best served cold, and eat the rich. My personal favorite, hard to swallow, features the cleaning glove delivering the classic middle finger gesture. This set is displayed as a 15-piece polyptych but are sold individually. With this grouping, Curry acknowledges that invisible labor is the unseen, unacknowledged mental, emotional, and physical work required to keep a household, workplace, or any environment running smoothly, and is most often performed by women and racial minorities or both.

Among the exhibition’s most ironic and laughter-inducing works are Hot Headed, a series of polychrome porcelain figural groupings featuring courting scenes of couples in 19^th century garb in romantic settings. Reminiscent of 19^th century German Dresden and Italian Capodimonte porcelain, these sculptures take on a provocative edge through Curry’s visceral alterations; Curry replaces the heads of the men in the figures with an unlit match, and the severed neck is covered with striking paper, which she did to show “the real volatility of the relationship and the injustice felt by women”. But what of the extra heads? Curry’s other porcelain series Storm in a Teacup pairs dainty teacups and saucers with macabre severed porcelain heads submerging in tea made of poured resin. She recalls cackling as she poured the resin in the cups, reveling in the dark humor behind the works. On a more serious note, the artist explains that “’storm in a teacup’ refers to an event that’s been exaggerated out of proportion. Despite all the changes women have made in the workforce, women still earn an average of 85% of what men earn. Each teacup in this series serves up a destructive storm named after a woman (who was undoubtedly not taken seriously and found herself in servitude of some sort)”.

I saved the best of the exhibition for last: Not So Still, a group seven of narrative oil paintings of female triumph that are star of the show, and which serve as the exhibition’s visual and conceptual anchor. Each painting incorporates a detail of a relevant 17th-century painting about women’s oppression, their revenge, and the fall of man. These Old Master incorporations are painted in muted tones, standing out against the bright overall colors in Curry’s paintings. The painting Gotta Break A Few Eggs is a nod to Antonio Ruggieri’s Jael and Sisera (1640), showing the scene of the biblical painting in the upper left-hand corner moments before Jael kills the general by driving a tent peg through his temple. Below, a seemingly innocent and cheerful still life features one of Curry’s Hot Headed porcelain groups arranged alongside a large cake and serving utensils. And what would this series be without a nod to Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes (c. 1623–1625), the infamous Italian Baroque painting seen in Curry’s oil painting That Rings A Bell; the haunting scene lurks in the background standing out in the still life with doilies and dinner bells. Gentileschi’s Judith and Her Maidservant…shows the aftermath of a murder where Judith decapitates Holofernes with his own sword, saving her people in the process. Do I sense a decapitation them here? When I saw this painting’s precursor, Judith Beheading Holofernes (showing the actual act of murder) in the Uffizi, I was left stunned and speechless, overcome by its powerful presence and historical significance. Gentileschi is widely regarded as a pioneering feminist icon for portraying women as physically strong and central to the narrative of her paintings, contradicting the male Baroque artists of her time. She undoubtedly and would have felt right at home with the women in Servitude.

In addition to works by Curry, scattered throughout the exhibition are works by female guest artists carefully chosen by Curry including Denise Buckley, Pita Brooks, Libby Chaney, Amy Copeland, Phyllis Fannin, R. Lee Gamble, Shannon Morris, LaSaundra Robinson, and Ginny Wallace-Curry.

This is the first exhibition Curry has curated; the idea of including other artists in this show began when she considered weaving a complicated and decorative rug, but instead contacted local artist, designer and educator Amy Copeland and asked if she would interpret the concept of servitude in one of her weavings. This resulted in Copeland’s Yes Dear, a rug included in Servitude, with the title text in printmaking ink paired with her husband’s shoeprints and laundry symbols, intended by the artist to reflect the expectations placed on women to care for others, keep the house clean, and quietly accommodate. “The phrase (yes, dear) can be affectionate, but it can also become an automatic response that hides frustration and exhaustion,” says Copeland. This opened a door to other artists whom Curry approached about participating who were given the freedom to explore their experiences with servitude, using the media of their choice. A standout work for me among the guest artists includes Libby Chaney’s He Called… Me Names, a dynamic mixed media collage which takes up the entire back gallery wall, made of commercial fabric (think moving blankets) dotted with white target stenciling, batting, and thread. Created in 1992, He Called… is being shown publicly for the first time. Chaney had previously kept the work out of view, she claims, held back by the humiliation and shame surrounding the experiences with her ex-husband that inspired it, as well as concerns that audiences in the early ’90s would be less receptive to its exposed seams and batting. The collage features cut out text displayed amongst sewn on pop imagery items such as playing cards and popular paintings. Accompanying the work, Chaney warns: “

The wrong partner is more damaging to you than the worst bad habit”.

In her artist’s statement, of Servitude, Curry states: “The objects depicted in these works are domestic, historically representing the presence of a woman and the roles women play, both in and outside of the home. These domestic materials are transformed into narrative objects that tell the unspoken stories of the invisible caretakers through objects once worn, held, or created in an environment of hierarchy. While appearing mundane, these objects carry powerful subtexts symbolizing control and imply who is expected to serve, clean, host, heal, and keep quiet.” In Servitude, it is clear that Curry and her fellow female exhibitors will not keep quiet.

Servitude
October 14 – November 20

HEDGE Gallery
1300 West 78th Street, Suite 200,
Cleveland, Ohio 44102
hedgeartgallery.com