Gendered concepts of mastery in art and the internet are two themes explored in Moorabool writer and Guardian columnist Van Badham’s new visual art exhibition.
Opened on Thursday, June 11 and running until June 26 at the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, Badham is partnering with her artist mentor Lauren McCartney – once an undergraduate student of hers – to present Girl Masters.
Badham said that the exhibition is an “intergenerational feminist conversation,” between herself and McCartney, and her own figurative works take inspiration from two things – the internet, and the practices of Dutch Masters across portraiture and still life painting.
“I have collections of works that depict me and things said about me in various contexts on the internet, in order to try and reclaim mastery of my own story,” Badham said.
“As a journalist, who is also a woman who is an opinion writer – you can imagine I’m harassed constantly and have been since I started writing for The Guardian in 2013 … a narrative that positions me as some evil kind of folk villain has been created around my persona – overwhelmingly by men,” she said.
In relation to this theme, just one selection of Badham’s works include selfies that have been turned into election posters – inspired by those used by Moorabool council candidates in the recent local government election – featuring slogans and descriptions that have been used against her on the internet.
Badham said McCartney’s watercolour work is “quite extraordinary in that it explores colour and tone and form, and requires absolute mastery of her painting practice,” yet the “very nature of those works are diminished by … old assumptions about what a male artist can do and what female artists can’t.”
Her works use unpredictable chaos and challenge traditional ideas around abstract painting and gender.
Details: qvwc.org.au/happening-events/girl-masters-badhammccartney
