Déjeuner dit vin sur poignée d'amour, 2017
(Embroidered and under wired goon-bags on garden hose, suspended above a box of full-bodied Australian Shiraz encased in a picnic box with love handles)
Dimensions variable, contents edible.
This piece is a visual poem as a sculptural installation. It is a self portrait investigating my experience of being a lesbian woman of child bearing age. My body is ready to bear children and hormonally I am pulled every month through waves of emotion and uncertainty. I am playfully objectifying myself as a way to examine my emotions productively and creatively. I have encased my womb (a functioning red wine cask with tap) in a constructed picnic box with resin cast 'banandles' (banana love handles). Above this box hangs my breasts on a garden hose, moulded out of empty wine bladder bags with the taps as nipples. My womanly functions are on display to be consumed by my myself and others. In the title I playfully reference Manet's painting Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, as I am both the exposed female subject and the picnic whilst the viewer moves around me and consumes my body.