Maureen Selwood’s Exhibition at Rosamund Felsen Gallery

Maureen Selwood’s ‘Sounding the Note of A’ opens at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. (Image: Courtesy of the gallery and artist)

Filmmaker, installation artist and CalArts’ faculty Maureen Selwood’s first solo artist exhibition, Sounding the Note of A, opens this weekend at Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles. The show features both works on paper and sculptures that explore the history of women’s resistance—feats of strength, outrage and defiance—throughout history.

Selwood’s work is inspired by the demonstrations of defiance by Joan of Arc, anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl and the contemporary punk prayer of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk group.

From the gallery:

The exhibition features transfer drawings with graphite and gold leaf ranging in color from ethereal blues to fully saturated acidic hues, as the motifs journey from the mystical to the now. The gold leaf unifies and anchors the drawings in a world that is both mythical and unsentimental. The exhibition also features a garden of five sculptural heads constructed from chicken wire, burlap, hydrocal and knit yarn. The materiality of the sculptures references the lineage of women’s work, from the empowerment of craft to the oppression of the sweatshop. Evocative of Pussy Riot’s iconic vibrant balaclavas (garments covering the head), the sculptures confront viewers with the contradictory power of masks to both conceal the subjective identity of the wearer and reveal broader interior truths.

The exhibition’s opening reception is on Saturday, Oct. 17 from 3-6 pm at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. There’s an artist talk with Selwood on Nov. 1 at 3 pm. RSVP for talk: info@rosamundfelsen.com.

Sounding the Note of A runs through Nov. 14, 2015.