Featured Artist of The Week: Alice Brookes!
"Alice's work is concerned with gender - exploring the relentless need society has to control and silence women's bodies often through fear and shame in our media saturated world. Her performances are also about residue, what is left behind as much as the performance itself. She draws on personal experience of reoccurring violence and abuse, politics, social media and artists both historical and current; alongside feminist theory that highlights the 'depictions of women as saint or sinner, mother or monster'. Being 'that' sort of woman are entrenched boundaries that Alice battles against constantly."
Selected artwork:
Artworks in order:
Two images (more available on request)are from Pillow Talk - 2021 an ongoing Installation/activist project highlighting murdered women.
An art Installation / Protest against femicide that took place on Richmond Terrace, directly opposite Downing street on November 13th 2021. The protest displayed a line of pillowcases, each with the hand sewn name and age of a women murdered by male violence this year. The line of pillowcases measured an overwhelming 70 metres in length. The sheer numbers of names (*118 and rising) created quite a shocking and saddening impact. Through the power of gathering we aimed to offer a vigil of sorts to acknowledge not only some of the women murdered by male violence, but all women with equal respect and recognition.
After this peaceful action a number of us moved over to the Downing Street gates with handmade placards to call on Boris to take action against the epidemic violence against Women.
Excerpt from press release: Alice Brookes, who designed the artwork, explained: ‘I chose to use pillows as they represent a safe, peaceful space at home to rest your head, yet the tragic irony is that home is the most dangerous place for women. The violence behind closed doors highlights the continued power imbalance between men and women within the home. ‘Pillow Talk’ aims to create a temporary place where these murdered women are all remembered, and their names celebrated peacefully. The pillowcases were hand sewn over a period of months by myself with the help of fellow artist Miranda Miller.
*The source of data used is from counting dead women by Karen Ingala Smith, which does not include transwomen.
Three images are from Cornered - 2019 a series of work using treacle and feather. More images and info available on request.