Emma Stark
Emma Stark
Domestic Bliss
2010
My work takes inspiration from the stereotypical roles of women as the housewife and my fascination with traditional methodologies of making paint.
The process of making oil and acrylic paints and that of creating icing for a cake are for me, inextricably intertwined. My painting process uses of both conventional and unconventional art materials: Commonplace kitchen utensils may be used to create works in oil while a hogs hair brush paint on icing and food dye. The resulting works are gestural, abstract and saccharine sweet.
My performance explores the perceptions of the ‘perfect’ wife, mother and sensual woman via holding an icing lesson. I have taken on the look of a 1950’s housewife for Domestic Bliss because during this period women were expected to be the perfect homemaker and ever so reserved. This of course is in direct contrast to my messy and indulgent improvised iced/painted works created during my performance.
Dining Chair and Painting combines domestic furniture with household paint. The painting while resting on a dining room chair has been layered with paint just as one would compile layers of a cake – one after another layers of paint were added to the canvas. I not only explore the domestic in this work but also issues, such chance and mark-making through the physical properties of the paint. In essence I investigate the fine line between the “art of cooking” and art itself.
“I’m a terrible cook, but if I could cook, I would see that as art as well, its how much creative energy you put into something.” Tracey Emin
