Aritist Kelly Reemsten was inspired to create her most recent oil painting series, “Pieces of Her” after coming across a 1950s survey which asked, in all earnestness, whether women should be able to water their lawns. The series taps into the loaded cultural associations surrounding femininity. “I just thought the idea of, ‘Should a woman be able to water the lawn?’ was such a funny story or theme and it made me laugh, so I started thinking, ‘Should a woman be able to cut down a tree? Should a woman be able to trim the hedges?’,” says Reemsten. “It made me wonder, ‘should’ whatever a women does be up for debate?”
These new works were debuted last year in Reemtsen’s second solo exhibition at albertz benda gallery in Manhattan. Reemtsen leverages archetypes in her work to, as she explains, “provoke a conversation about gender roles and the social constructs that define them, in hopes of moving past them.”
