GEORGIA STRAIGHT REVIEWS GROSSMANN'S WORK

Vancouver painter Angela Grossmann's exhibit is both celebratory and critical. 

The found images Grossmann employs range from photos of Greco-Roman statuary through what look like erotic postcards from the 1920s and girlie pix of the 1950s to more recent casual shots of young women in black bras and tight jeans. Almost all the women depicted here avert their faces or are shot from behind. As feminist critics have long observed, such poses disempower women, contributing to the sense that they are objects of the male gaze. (Most of the original found images Grossmann incorporates into her collages would have been shot by men.)
 
The most impressive work in the show is the collage The Future Is Female. Here, Grossmann has assembled a female figure from multiple parts, including a head with ’60s-style headband, a torso decked in ’50s-style white underwear, hips swaddled in jeans so tight the zipper is gaping at the top, striped pants, bobby socks, Mary Janes, and multiple, Shiva-like arms. This work, executed on an old piece of canvas awning, powerfully evokes the fractured business of constructing an identity in an age of image bombardment. 

Reviewed By Robin Laurence, April 24, 2012  /  To read the full article CLICK HERE
 
Angela Grossmann: the Future Is Female  At Winsor Gallery until May 6