The sacking: an exploration of Women, Bullying and the Workplace (2012)

2012, 2 – 19 August, Solo Exhibition “The sacking: an exploration of Women, Bullying and the Workplace” M16 Artspace, Blaxland Cres Griffith ACT

The Sacking; an exploration of Women, Bullying and the Workplace.

Opens 6pm 2^nd august 2012

Wed – Sun, 12 – 5.00, 2 – 19 August 2012.

ArtSpace M16 Gallery

Blaxland Crescent Griffith

Raw, Angry, hauntingly beautiful, terrifying, vulnerable.

These are the words used to describe this new collection of works from Canberra artist McCarron-Benson. The works explore bullying, women and the work place .  These are not gentle works.  They are powerful with bold lines and strong colours. They are not neat.  The various medium are stretched and exploited to convey the emotions.  They are confronting.  On one hand attracting the viewer with their brightness and on the other hand repelling the viewer with their subject matter.

Winged women, beautiful and terrifying in the same moment, swoop over crowds of uplifted faces. Flocks of these women birds circle the skies. Others attack naked ladies who cover their eyes and cower to protect themselves from the onslaught of the creatures.  Lucky ones scamper away.

Here and there an individual woman engages in a private battle as to join the predators or stand alone and cavort. It is up viewer to decide to whom the uplifted faces belong; the helpless, the hopeless, perhaps the impotent.

The theme is continued throughout the collection which includes a large triptych in acrylics accompanied by several small paintings, drawings in ink and wash, and a set of linocuts.

Artists Statement: “ I drew out my feelings at a time I was sacked without notice and without reason given.  Then as the personal hurt subsided the outrage remained and the drawings became about bullying generally, and the way women bully, especially in the workplace.  So my bullies somehow evolved as winged creatures – harpies perhaps, but not intentionally.  I wanted to show how they travel in packs, never one alone and how they dart in and pick at the vulnerable.  They are often beautiful and therefore the more terrifying at the same moment, and I drew the victim as naked because one has no protection at these times.  It is as though one is unclothed.  I have the victims protecting their faces, their eyes from being plucked out.  And in some cases, I have the woman involved in an internal struggle to emerge as a bully or free.”