Colleen Merrill

"When my daughter was seven, she played a budding flower in a production of Into the Woods. The folklore of Into the Woods associates the forest as a fertile and wild place where characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Goldilocks face danger. On the other side of danger, these heroines come back learning lessons of responsibility and the need for a more tamed and domesticated life. In her tale, Little Red Riding Hood is reaching the age of womanhood. Her cloak shields her as to say she is not yet available, but its red color suggests awaited menstruation, fertility, and life. From an early age we are taught the expectations and rewards of the nuclear family. At seven, my daughter is already performing as a budding flower, a symbolic gesture of blossoming to come. American culture reiterates these influences within our stories, education, politics, and visual culture.

The work in Day In & Day Out playfully untangles and scrutinizes how these larger social domains hold influence and power over our most private and interdependent intimacies. The suggestive and embellished composite forms evoke the beauty and tension of these relationships while also referencing the personal, social, and gendered history of textiles. The re-purposed use of textiles has a dual role of evoking historical associations of feminine ideals within the home, while physically suggesting the complexities and fragility of the body."

--Colleen Merrill, 2022

 

Colleen Merrill interview with Keith Waits on Louisville Visual Art's "Artist Talks with LVA" on 97.1 WXOX ARTxFM
  

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19 products

19 products