Becky Mair

becky@mair.freeisp.co.uk

 

Artist Statement

My work incorporates a range of media. It is about the control of power, balancing the differences between the representations of the male and the female, and the reversal of the control of power between the sexes.

The process of representing the traditional, powerful, masculine image of the horse and rider is one of the areas that I am looking at in my work. ‘Who Takes Control’ represents the tradition in art history that uses the horse as an embodiment of power, war, strength, energy, virility, and sexuality. Using a domestic material like soap in conjunction with this theme can be seen as subversive, because the material is more associated with the domestic goddess/engineer. This use of a domestic product in representing this traditional image is seditious. Using scent and pigment to heighten the senses, it allows us to reminisce the 1950’s housewife. This work addresses the boundaries between male and female power, sexuality, and motherhood and taps into the tradition of the two oldest images in art; the image of the horse and the image of a man.