PROJECT SPACE:
Kirsty Martinsen, Bodiness skin
March 5th - March 29th, 2025
Opening Reception: March 5th 6PM - 8PM
Martinsen on Bodiness: skin:
The books are part of the somatic work I'm doing, working with the sensations, memories and connections arising from my body. The contemplation for this next series is around skin. I call is Bodiness: skin because it falls under the Bodiness umbrella of my work. Bodiness is an idea I've worked on since 2016 about my relationship with my body as it changes with MS. Bodiness: skin explores touch and my aversion to being touched and touching another’s skin. Skin, as a barrier, as defence, as sweaty, clammy revulsion or sensual necessity.
MS has claimed the fine motor skills and dexterity that made it possible for me to maintain the easel painting I was trained in. I now only have the disappearing usage of my right hand, so now I use whatever is available to me- my wheelchair, my body, my life. In my recent Bodiness performance I painted a large canvas on the ground with the tyres of my wheelchair and large brushes taped to broom handles. Following on from the performance, with a desire to keep working in this way with large brushes, I began combining the artists books I’ve been working on with the large brushes, in a vertical rather than horizontal way. This way they cascade down the wall and talk to each other in a way the the books on the floor don’t.
Kirsty Martinsen is a painter, writer, filmmaker and performer who lives and works on Kauna land (Adelaide, South Australia). She has a BA Visual Art from UniSA, and a Grad Diploma in Painting from NY Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. In a world of fast decisions, literalness, the need to know and be told how to think and feel, Kirsty Martinsen is interested in the opposite. She’s interested in the quiet, slow surrendering of explanations, and the layers and textures of our relationship with ourselves. In 2016 she approached New York Theatre Director Erwin Maas to collaborate with her on a self portrait performance idea called BODINESS, based on her changing relationship with her own body due to MS. In 2024 BODINESS was included in the Adelaide Festival’s Neoterica exhibition finisage, and the inSPACE Creative Development Program at the Adelaide Festival Centre. An abiding love of drawing and colour plus the focus on her body continues throughout every aspect of her work and BODINESS is the umbrella everything fits under.
COURTYARD:
Becky Kinder, Venus Figures
March 5th - March 29th, 2025
Opening Reception: March 5th 6PM - 8PM
Venus Figures presents new body based ceramic sculptures and vessels by Becky Kinder.
Becky Kinder was born in Nebraska, raised in Texas and has lived and worked in Brooklyn for the past 23 years. She has a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA in painting from Hunter College and has attended residencies at The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, The Wassaic Project, and Culture Vultures Fez/ Sefrou in Morocco. She makes large oil paintings, drawings, prints and ceramic sculptures. Her work is concerned with archeology, the body, reproduction, and mourning. She has had solo exhibitions at Hercules Art Space in Tribeca and Albert Merola Gallery in Provincetown. Her work has been exhibited at Field Projects in New York, North Orange Gallery in Montclair and the artist run spaces Lorimoto, GridSpace, Regina Rex, Best Western, Starship Gallery and Black Ball Projects in Brooklyn.