The Drawers - Donna Cleary Commentary written by Julie Oakes
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WWW.Women
Donna
Cleary
Modern
western culture is proportionately bereft of fertility figures. In fact,
with the population still growing, it could be accused of holding a somewhat
jaded view of childbirth. The pressures of modern living have necessitated
double income families and the ‘job’ of rearing the child can be farmed out
to care facilities. Family time has, sadly, been shortened and the term
‘family values’ has an undertone of suspect political positioning that is
quite often adverse to the natural concept of family. Always a clear symbol of the bounteous and beautiful, the pregnant body, nude, is glorified in Donna Cleary’s drawings and monoprints. To omit, in an exhibition that celebrates women, imagery pertaining to the solely exclusive female state of pregnancy, would be close to a slight to the gender. Women, capable of being ‘with child’, are hence the ones who know best how to visually speak of the experience. Donna Cleary represents the natural phenomena well. Julie Oakes Copyright © 2008 Headbones Gallery |