Series 3 mixed media paintings: photographs and oil on fabric

18” x 18” each

Exhibition: Galerie Horace, Sherbrooke, Quebec

 

Titles:                                                                 

1. Does your husband like meat?

2. Does your husband have a craving?

3. Does your husband ask for pork?

 

The advertising campaign for Knorr sauces in Mexico used the three phrases above on posters in subway cars. Next to these were posters from the Organization for Women’s Rights declaring: “Women, you have the right to decide how many children to have.” Travellers on the subway were confronted with these conflicting messages, one confining, one liberating. This piece comments on the customary stages in a woman’s life: wife, homemaker, mother. The photographs, taken in Mexico City, highlight the excesses and chaos of mega-cities. They are laminated to imitate the credentials required to enter buildings in Mexico, which are always accompanied by a photograph. Like the credentials, the laminated photographs identify the stages of ones life. The painting below each photo is oil on a fabric chosen to reflect the particular stage in question: a peach brocade for the wedding, a checked tablecloth for the kitchen, and cotton sheets for the bed.