currently on AT STOCKROOM

10 AUGUST UNTIL 09 SEPTEMBER

Our Desires Are Not Our Own
JESSICA LEDWICH

Our Desires Are Not Our Own explores the ambiguity and complexity of the emotions of female desire and pleasure once woman is no longer positioned as the ‘object’ of heterosexual male desire.

The ‘male gaze’ as coined by Laura Mulvey in 1975 speaks to the way in which women historically have been presented in visual arts and literature as objects of male pleasure and desire. In response to this, Jill Soloway in her TIFF Master Class identifies the male gaze for the way it “shames (women’s) desire (and) names only the desire that is okay with them.” She investigates the notion of the ‘female gaze’ and the idea of the ‘subjective camera’. It is this concept of subjectivity through the lens in relation to female desire that Ledwich wishes to explore.

Jessica Ledwich is a Melbourne based visual artist whose work explores the more contentious topics of conversation. Mortality, anthropology, technology and contemporary ideals are themes that regularly feature in her work. She explores the uncanny, the abject and often the irrational to unmask the more complex side of human behaviour, analyzing its perversities, to distill down this strange phenomena we call 'culture'.

Ledwich initially studied a Bachelor of Performing Arts at Monash University, Melbourne, but found her true calling in photography and visual art. In 2014 Ledwich completed a Master of Fine Art with distinction at RMIT University, Melbourne. Ledwich regularly exhibits in Australia and overseas and her work is held in private collections in Australia, London, Hong Kong and The United States. Her series Monstrous Feminine has received much acclaim, enjoying press coverage in the US, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, Australia and New Zealand and was featured in the New York photography publication Musée Magazine's WOMEN issue and Chicago’s political magazine The Point. She is a recipient of both an Australia Arts Council Artstart award as well as a Cultural Career Fund award.

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Feast
ZOE BARRY. WELFE BOWYER. ANDREI DAVIDOFF. LINSEY GOSPER, IRENE WELLM. MICHAEL NEEDHAM. EMME ORBACH. MICHAEL VALE. FELIX WILSON. THE RYAN SISTERS

Feast is a winter culinary event that celebrates dystopian beauty and contemporary horror through food and art. With a four-course banquet inspired by earth, life and death by award-winning chef Emma James, eleven artists have been asked to create an element of this highly ornate and dark sensory experience.

Sculptures, paintings, video and sound works centred around the disturbingly absurd and darkly opulent will provide an immersive and extravagant event.

*Please note this is a carnivorous event, filled with amazing textures, flavours and at times challenging food presentations. Vegetarians and dietary requirements can not be catered for.