'read me' group exhibition opens April 12th 2008

'read me' is an exhibition exploring the use of words and text in contemporary art. Misselbrook has two series of works in this exhibition, 'I Dream of a Common Language' 2005 and 'Know Your Place' 2007. The latter created during her recent stay in Cyprus as part of her Post Graduate study.

'I Dream of a Common Language' depicts varying states of female 'ness' using make-up, fat and chocolate struggling to communicate with the viewer. These canvases embody the skeletal, sexual and suffering self - one body moving through each state.




'Know Your Place' presents symmetrical inkblots on pages taken from Faludi's 'Backlash' spoilt by stains of consumption. The artist used this series of works as place-mats on the dinner table during every mealtime for a period of six weeks. The works show the drink ring marks and food debris, heat sealed to preserve them.

Please come along to the Artists Preview on Tuesday 6th May at 7.30pm, the exhibition runs until 21st May at the Havant Arts centre, 56 East Street, Havant, Hampshire, UK, PO9 1BS.

Latest Artist Statement

Socio-cultural concerns about femininity and feminism, about the body, about individual control and consumption within a consumer society - the inspiration for the creation of my work. My work is a way of exorcising something from myself, which is very emotional, maybe troubled. I become a subject who produces that which is visible. It is my silent, non-verbal response.

The artwork plays on traditional sculptural concerns, the process of adding or taking away. However, this is not only achieved using stone or wood but adding chocolate, soap, latex, wax, degradable or even edible materials, underlining the transient state of the body. I believe food is the medium through which we, particularly women are addressed and, in turn; food can become the language of women's response. Obsessive and routine acts of measuring, producing and perfecting envelopes both my creative process and the disciplined quest for an unattainable bodily perfection. Meanwhile, the works degrade as does the body.

The final artworks attempt to present the seductive yet simultaneously repellent nature of human anatomy embodying ways of externalising a very internalised self-analysis of the body personal. The juxtaposition of hard against soft, of sensual against skeletal, of void against object, this is my visual language of a struggle within and of a body.