Eto Umanah: Beautifully Sick Creatures
Beautifully Sick Creatures
By Eto Umanah
on
Rage Quilts by Jessica Rimes and May Jones
Soft. Comforting. Disturbing. Safe. Unnerving. These are the juxtapositions of emotions that are generated upon first contact with Jessica Rimes and May Jones’ “Rage Quilts”, an exhibition comprised of a series of delicately handcrafted quilts of varying sizes, patterns, and colour schemes with striking readable text. In this exhibition, the artist duo address feminist topics such as women’s labour, medical inequality, and common interpretations of and responses to ‘female’ illness/symptoms, which are often dismissed and swept under the rug in mainstream media and discourse. On the surface, the exhibition draws together aesthetically pleasing quilts with relatable messages, but a deeper analysis reveals the complexities of the female lived experience, as well as an exploration of communal practices and their renewed significance in the modern era.
One quilt reads provocatively: ‘Maybe they’ll believe me when I’m dead’. Another says: ‘Sometimes I have to crawl to get to the bathroom’, and then ‘Most days I can’t get out of bed’. The artists’ fury, is expressed against a backdrop of floral and brightly colored soft fabric, referring to the politics of female expression- in the sense that even in the depths of anger, frustration, disgust, women are still expected to be gentle, palatable, and polite. Women who stray from these socially expected modes of behaviour are deemed to be ‘aggressive’ and are socially punished, regardless of how warranted their emotional responses may be, or vile the actions of their antagonists (in this case, gaslighting healthcare providers).
Through the triggering texts, Rimes and Jones are also illustrating the devastating real-life consequences of untreated and dismissed chronic illnesses and diseases in women that often lead to permanent psychological and physical damage and/or degradation. Medical ignorance and dismissal of female health concerns are rooted in a long history of Victorian-era misogyny and invented concepts such as ‘hysteria’, which purported that most women’s’ health issues are linked to their hormones and the spontaneous ‘movements’ of the uterus within the female body. This school of thought designates the suffering of women as imagined by those afflicted, who must then logically be responsible for their own plight. Viewers of the exhibition are temporarily transported into the artists’ psyche, a liminal space filled with pain, ignored concerns, suppressed emotions, irreversible health conditions, and undervalued labour. A heart-wrenching life sentence that those born female must contend with.
Quilting, much like other crafts such as embroidery and quilling have been historically deemed to be ‘feminine’ and primarily female hobbies/past-times. In pre-modern times, these group activities were often the only ways that women could bond, gossip, socialise and express their creativity away from rigid male supervision. The quilts in this exhibition serve as a reminder of these sexist restrictions on women’s modes of expression, and join the legacy of artists utilizing craft as a means of contemporary advocacy for women’s voices and rights ; a reclamation of power of women-made objects and time that have long been undervalued.
These quilts ask the audience to consider the position they occupy on the socio-economic ladder as well as their individual privileges due to sex, gender and good health.
The prioritised utilitarianism of the quilts and their objective beauty over their abundant past also tactfully serves as a metaphor of the social expectations of the modern-day woman. In the hyper-capitalist 21st century society in which we live, it appears as though women’s unique individuality is still often dismissed in favour of pressuring them into a lifetime of domestic servitude, childbearing/rearing, as well as maintaining personal fitness and beauty as defined by the male gaze- in addition to maintaining a full-time job and contributing income to the household. The expectations placed on men, however, seem to be universally less stern; typically consisting exclusively of achieving financial success.
This exhibition presents quilting as an art form deserving of equivalent consideration to traditional fine arts. In so doing, this showcase emphasises the relevance of the many gynocentric issues and concerns explored by the artists. These quilts do not offer us solutions, instead they raise questions about our acceptance of the status quo and force us to reckon with the harsh realities of domestic, social, and the medical misunderstanding and mistreatment of women.
Check out the archive and documentation for the show written about above:
https://www.marionnicollgallery.ca/archive/20202024/rage-quilts-jessica-rimes-and-may-jones
About the Author:
Etopima Umanah is a first generation Nigerian artist and writer living, working, and playing in the city of Calgary. She specialises in fineline pen illustrations and acrylic/oil painting that combines both academical realism and two dimensionally flat playful styles. She is concerned about the lived experiences of marginalised women, the kitsch, and female taboo behaviours, often using humour and vivid colour schemes to appeal to broader audiences. She has exhibited work in Nigeria, attended the University of Alberta, taught children art in summer programs, and is currently pursuing a BFA in painting at the Alberta University of the Arts.
Instagram: @etothakilla