Lori Larusso, "Lady Like"
The works in Lady Like emerge from Lori Larusso’s continued examination of femininity and the domestic sphere. With her signature balance of technical craft and humor, the artist composes highly-stylized representations of decorative objects, providing inroads to discussions of gender, class, and the act of looking.
Many paintings in the exhibition depict ceramic works of Betty Lou Nichols, a mid-century ceramicist whose works gained renown during WWII. Nichols’ signature vessel—a vase resembling a doll-like caricature of a woman’s head—became immensely popular in the 1960s, spawning countless mass-market knockoffs. These heavily-lashed, hollow busts often bear the effigies of pop-cultural icons (such as Marilyn Monroe or Jackie Kennedy), appearing to sprout floral arrangements from the tops of their downcast visages.
Larusso’s elevation of the ornamental highlights the complexities of representation, specifically with regard to traditional depictions of femininity. Lady Like alludes to the power dynamics of looking; the ways in which women and femmes are both objectified and relegated to the margins. This subjugation is carried out across mediums: viewers are often presented an image of femininity which has been stripped of context and agency, and exists to bear the gaze of a male protagonist. By abstracting and re-presenting these carefully-cultivated objects—whose primary function is to provide visual pleasure—Larusso invites viewers to interrogate the processes of objectification.
