Girlhood can be a prickly thing. The artists featured in "Teetering on the Brink: Femininity, Inheritance and Disaster," a new exhibition at Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem, explore the friction that occurs when childhood innocence meets gendered expectations. "Many people come to my work and are tantalized by its saccharine and overtly feminine qualities," says Ebony Russell, an Australian artist whose intricate porcelain pieces are inspired by her favorite childhood ceramic figurines and call to mind a cake with icing applied to the point of near collapse. "But the more you look at it, the more you see the menacing underlying subversion."
March 6, 2024
