Thrilled to be part of Argentum: Contemporary Silverpoint, curated by the amazing silverpoint guru Lauren Amalia Redding. The exhibition will be on view at The Daughtrey Gallery at Hillsdale College in Michigan, from October 18th through November 20th 2019. This is the second exhibition of contemporary silverpoint drawings that Lauren has curated, the first of which was exhibited in NYC in 2017.
For this second exhibition, I wanted to focus again on women in politics. My piece for the first Argentum exhbition, 240 Year Heartbreak, was created as a response to the electoral college loss of America’s first major party female nominee for president. This piece, featuring Massachusetts senator and democratic primary hopeful Elizabeth Warren, intentionally strikes a more optimistic note. Shaped like a hand fan design and cut from a Warren campaign poster, Pinky Swear is the first of a series exploring the female presidential hopefuls of 2019.
On the campaign trail, Warren makes it a point to pinky-swear with little girls so they will always remember that running for president is “what girls do.” The gesture itself is coded as feminine, since it represents the kind of non-verbal lagnuage that young girls grow up using almost exclusively among themselves. A pinky swear is a promise, a commitment. None of these girls will be old enough to cast a vote for Warren in 2020, so the gesture is more of an affirmation for their potential than anything else; offered in a way that speaks to their shared experience of girlhood. It is a touching tradition, and one that could only have happened in a post-2016 election America.
The flowered decorations of the design are likewise culled from a feminine-coded language: the Victorian era “language of flowers.” White rosesbuds, for example, signify girlhood. Nasturtium symbolizes patriotism. This intensely feminine work will be on display alongside an incredible roster of artists, each working with silverpoint in their own way.
Participating artists include: James Xavier Barbour, Dina Brodsky, Carol Broman, Noah Buchanan, Lauren Caldarola, Luis Colan, Harvey Citron, Brad Davis, Joshua Henderson, Sam Knecht, Tom Mazzullo, Mary Anne McCarthy, Lauren Amalia Redding, Koo Schader, Edward Schmidt, Darryl Babatunde Smith, Jesse Stern, Dan Thompson and Cheryl Wheat
