Mary Kay exhibition

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 15

Mary Kay exhibition

“Working it out” Paintings and drawings by Mary Kay, at the Gingko Gallery until February 27. Reviewed by John Hurrell.

The 28 works by Mary Kay showing at the Gingko Gallery range in method from delicate, finely controlled watercolours, to pen and ink drawings and ink-transfer rubbings made from colour xeroxes. Technically the show is more accomplished than her last exhibition. It is less whimsical, but brimming with confidence.

Its subject matter is diverse, but conceptionally cohesive. It ranges from the gruesome obstetric medical diagrams to sweetly charming Paisley patters. Most of the images are taken from packages of household products, such as baking powder, or from illustrations found in magazines or books. They are then mischievously tampered with either with letraset or water-colour. Most express resentment at sexual stereotyping and men's manipulation of women as a domestic labour force. Patriarchal deception is the dominant theme, and this ranges from Christianity, the

bomb and the meat industry to the so-called joys of child-bearing. This exhibition is witty, but it is also slyly subversive in unexpected ways, even against some of the polemics of feminism itself. The works contain complex undercurrents of ambivalence, as hinted in the exhibition’s title, which implies catharis as well as analysis. At times works are baffingly obscure, but their intimate size forces the viewer to search closely for clues among the minute details.

Nothing is what it initially seems here. Even simple water-colour studies of fruit and vegetables that look like illustrations from a cookery book take on sexual meanings just by virtue of what is being displayed round them. A squashed boysenberry becomes a symbol for something else. There is no innocence here. Everything is coated with an irony that verges on grim sarcasm or barely restrained violence.

Sufficiently so, in fact, that the impulse to laugh at some of the more absurd images is tempered by the seriousness of the underlying political issues.

A magazine illustration taken from the 19505, of a woman sitting demurely on a bed earnestly reading a hardcover book on how to avoid rape, is one such example. It may be bizarre, but it is difficult to laugh at Occasionally the humour is more in the nature of a bellylaugh. “The White Male System" shows some puffing elderly gentlemen playing tennis, dressed in white and angelically haloed. They represent a variation of “fiddling while Rome burns” while perhaps becoming decrepit historical relics.

Repeated visits to this exemplary exhibition will bring rewards. Mary Kay’s exhibition, like Jackson’s in the James Paul, suggests we might have a good run of exciting shows in 1986. So far, the year looks very prom-