We are delighted to have Alice Brookes the intersectional feminist, performance artist and activist be our featured artist for issue 27.
Alice is an emerging artist who after completing her MA in Fine Art in 2019 has exhibited in the U.K. and internationally. She is an advocate for the elimination of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and organises art installation/protests across the country. Alice is also a fine art tutor.
www.instagram.com/art_alicebrookes_uncovered
Could you explain your practice?
My practice is centred around gender politics and the patriarchal hierarchy that thrives on the assumed gender binary of men and women. I strive to make work that raises questions about gender oppression? and inequalities by using performance and activism that are often entangled, visceral and unsettling.
My thoughts and concepts are fundamentally concerned with identity, sexuality and mimicry and the multiple roles women play. I have a strong focus on domesticity and the global pressure for female perfection, as seen through the patriarchal gaze. I am interested in the notion of women partaking both consciously and subconsciously in gender stereotyping that in turn impacts what they feel they should be and do, including often adhering to polite expectations. I worked in the international fashion industry for over 10 years and even now continue to confront ingrained expectations about female beauty with ultimate ‘value’ being placed on appearance and youth. The pedestal women are elevated to is intentionally brief and precarious, and when they are no longer seen as decorative they are encouraged to fixate on their interior space and motherhood. Societal expectations on women - strict, laden with judgement and ever changing - are intended to disengage them from the world around them.
With the recent dangerous erasure of women and women's freedoms, I have recently become involved in sculptural textiles and community projects with the aim of elevating multiple women’s voices.
My work takes place predominantly outside or inside my home and recorded on my iPhone. The low budget nature of the film references – and challenges - the idea that female, feminist artists don’t make “real art”.
2 - Is art relevant today?
Absolutely, but more so in times of shrinking freedoms, like now!. Art can offer an opportunity for conversations that may not otherwise be had.
3 – We are always asked what other artists influence us, we want to know what art you don’t like and which influences you?
Influence comes from so many directions but I suppose I am most influenced by 60s and 70s performance artists, women like Hannah Wilkes, Adrian Piper, Suzanne Lacy, Yoko Ono, among many others. I’m attracted to the powerful yet visual simplicity of the work. I’m drawn to work that engages with social reality, the characteristics of space and the politics of identity, particularly the political battle of the female body. Work made by these feminist artists are as relevant today as when it was made. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. I am fearful of what other rights will be revoked - same sex marriage, contraception, who knows, even the vote? Paula Regos abortion series comes to mind as back street abortions, will once again be in the foreground. Anyway, I’m going of track! I am also influenced by artists like Toulouse Lautrec, Manet, Degas, yet I am conflicted for obvious reasons. The separation of the man and the artist can be challenging.
I admire the work of French photographer Claude Cahun and their desire for a world free from gender constraints. As they say: "Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me”. I have always strongly identified as female and all the trappings that come with it, I wonder how much of that is due to ingrained stereotyping and how much is actually me? I am equally provoked by personal experience, popular culture, magazines, historical and contemporary literature, and in particular feminist literature, my latest read being - HOOD FEMINISM - Notes From The Women White Feminists Forgot by Mikki Kendall.
4- If you could go back 10-20 years what would you tell your younger self?
Be kind to yourself, it’s going to be o.k.
5 – If you could go forward 10-20 years what do you hope to have done or not done?
I hope to have not repeated the same mistakes and to have eased up on being so self-critical!