Clare Parry: Restoration & Ruin - MFA Thesis Exhibition - Nov 2-6 '09 - VAF Gallery, UCSD

Visual Arts Facility Gallery, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, California 92093

Ornate, mass-produced, imitation damask wallpaper patterns, on closer inspection, reveal disquieting handmade manipulation. Clare Parry’s work looks askance at the purlieu’s of the feminine and the decorative as constructs through visual similes that address their delegation as background. Blatant associations of gender and its relation to handicraft are complicated as the paintings themselves cry out in a sweet outpouring of mildew and decay; festering within the alluring patterns of metaphorical repression. The commanding presence of each piece ensnares the viewer as a result of a familiar resemblance to domestic settings and transfixes through the uncanny metamorphoses of literal wallpapers into surreptitious mold. Parry’s work addresses the impossibility of perfection and the eerie propinquity of beauty to the grotesque, giving new meaning to the notion of feminine mystique.