Ellen Lesperance: I Am Woman Inflicted with the Burden of Bearing Mankind
Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present I Am Woman Inflicted with the Burden of Bearing Mankind, a solo exhibition of new work by Ellen Lesperance. Continuing her exploration of the intersection of feminism, craft, and activism, Lesperance makes paintings inspired by knitting patterns worn or utilized by women involved in acts of both empowerment and struggle. For this exhibition, Lesperance mines source material related to contemporary women activists and the Amazons of ancient Greece and, as such, speaks to similarities that transcend space and time.
Lesperance鈥檚 long-standing interest in protest knitwear originates in the Greenham Common Women鈥檚 Peace Camp, an anti-nuclear movement which took place in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 鈥�90s. Combing through archives related to Greenham Common, Lesperance discovered a trove of images of hand-knit material, often embedded with subversive, political, and feminist symbology. As a Fulbright Global Scholar (2022-24), Lesperance had the opportunity to expand upon this research and to explore how Greenham Common galvanized feminists opposed to the nuclear arms race and nuclear war from around the world. It effectively initiated a movement to create peace camps outside of other military bases with nuclear interests, ensuring that these sites also became highly visible and politicized. This coordinated activist strategy became an international women's peace movement. To that end, Lesperance visited Welsh archives, and went to both Italy for La Ragnatela, a Women's Peace Camp in Cosimo, Sicily and Australia for the Pine Gap and Coburn Sound Peace Camps organized by the Australian feminist collective Women for Survival. In tracing the use of visual symbology across international communities, she determined there was a semi-shared "imaginarium" relating to the celebration of the Amazon warrior woman鈥攁 way to look back into ancient Western history with a drive towards score-settling and to imagine that there was a time when a female society thrived and was populated by these legendary women. Additionally, Amazon women, like the twentieth-century feminist activists, were traditionally depicted wearing distinctive, heavily patterned handmade garments embedded with symbols.
As she went deeper into her research, Lesperance encountered a strong contrary voice on the subject of feminism and the Amazons. Feminist cultural historian Mandy Merck wrote an essay in 1995 entitled 鈥淭he Amazons of Ancient Athens鈥� positing that the Amazon is ultimately not a symbol of power or the manifestation of a pre-patriarchal society, but, rather a representation of the idea of ancient women in conflict, women fighting and being slain. She further proposed that the battle scenes between Ancient Greeks and Amazons chronicled in Greek mythology and art functioned as a patriotic device contrived by state leaders to illustrate to the 鈥渟ubjugated, female members of society that may have wished for a reversal of their oppression... that such a rebellion had already occurred and resulted in a deserved defeat.鈥� 鈥淣othing of the real oppression of their sex is challenged by these mythic heroines, it is merely transcended,鈥� writes Merck. 鈥淭heir weapons and strategy are men's weapons and strategy. They offer a solution which is magical not political.鈥�
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Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present I Am Woman Inflicted with the Burden of Bearing Mankind, a solo exhibition of new work by Ellen Lesperance. Continuing her exploration of the intersection of feminism, craft, and activism, Lesperance makes paintings inspired by knitting patterns worn or utilized by women involved in acts of both empowerment and struggle. For this exhibition, Lesperance mines source material related to contemporary women activists and the Amazons of ancient Greece and, as such, speaks to similarities that transcend space and time.
Lesperance鈥檚 long-standing interest in protest knitwear originates in the Greenham Common Women鈥檚 Peace Camp, an anti-nuclear movement which took place in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 鈥�90s. Combing through archives related to Greenham Common, Lesperance discovered a trove of images of hand-knit material, often embedded with subversive, political, and feminist symbology. As a Fulbright Global Scholar (2022-24), Lesperance had the opportunity to expand upon this research and to explore how Greenham Common galvanized feminists opposed to the nuclear arms race and nuclear war from around the world. It effectively initiated a movement to create peace camps outside of other military bases with nuclear interests, ensuring that these sites also became highly visible and politicized. This coordinated activist strategy became an international women's peace movement. To that end, Lesperance visited Welsh archives, and went to both Italy for La Ragnatela, a Women's Peace Camp in Cosimo, Sicily and Australia for the Pine Gap and Coburn Sound Peace Camps organized by the Australian feminist collective Women for Survival. In tracing the use of visual symbology across international communities, she determined there was a semi-shared "imaginarium" relating to the celebration of the Amazon warrior woman鈥攁 way to look back into ancient Western history with a drive towards score-settling and to imagine that there was a time when a female society thrived and was populated by these legendary women. Additionally, Amazon women, like the twentieth-century feminist activists, were traditionally depicted wearing distinctive, heavily patterned handmade garments embedded with symbols.
As she went deeper into her research, Lesperance encountered a strong contrary voice on the subject of feminism and the Amazons. Feminist cultural historian Mandy Merck wrote an essay in 1995 entitled 鈥淭he Amazons of Ancient Athens鈥� positing that the Amazon is ultimately not a symbol of power or the manifestation of a pre-patriarchal society, but, rather a representation of the idea of ancient women in conflict, women fighting and being slain. She further proposed that the battle scenes between Ancient Greeks and Amazons chronicled in Greek mythology and art functioned as a patriotic device contrived by state leaders to illustrate to the 鈥渟ubjugated, female members of society that may have wished for a reversal of their oppression... that such a rebellion had already occurred and resulted in a deserved defeat.鈥� 鈥淣othing of the real oppression of their sex is challenged by these mythic heroines, it is merely transcended,鈥� writes Merck. 鈥淭heir weapons and strategy are men's weapons and strategy. They offer a solution which is magical not political.鈥�
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Derek Eller Gallery presents I Am Woman Inflicted with the Burden of Bearing Mankind, a solo exhibition of new work by Ellen Lesperance.
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