Exquisites Crowned
There is a century old drawing game called "Exquisite Corpses." This very entertaining parlour game may be more familiar to some in the form of "flip books" from their childhood. Essentially a piece of paper is folded into thirds. Each participant then has a set time limit to draw the head or top of a creation, indicating where the image is to continue onto the next section before passing the paper to the next artist to create the middle section, which in turn is then passed to the final person to create the bottom. At the end of the game hilarity ensues as the final images are uncovered.
Patricia L. Smith, Wendy Browne and myself began discussing a potential shared project shortly after exploring Vancouver’s East End Cultural Crawl together in the fall of 2016. How could we support each other in our professional pursuits as female visual artists? When the notion of Exquisite Corpses arose, it seemed perfect.
As the game evolved it became obvious that the images were female without ever having stated that as an intention. Considering all of the recent social and political “buzz” acknowledging the power of women, it seems logical that visual artists would be influenced to consider and celebrate femininity.
We have each created five female images in 3 parts and each of them wear a crown in celebration of their feminine energy. There are 15 Exquisites Crowned standing 3 feet tall: 5 made by me, 5 made by Wendy and 5 made by Patricia. Just like females each one is so unique and exquisite! To complete the game we have made 2 super large collaborative Exquisistes Crowned (Cat Woman and Walking on Water - both available and pictured directly below) using one piece from each artist (head, body and legs) our collaborative Exquisites stand 6 feet tall and are reigning supreme!
