Brain Child
Allyson Mitchell
May 22nd to June 19th, 2009
Brain Child consists of over 100 figurines of rosy-cheeked, round-eyed girls wearing oversized bonnets. Together the ceramic figures queue up before a giant macramé brain perched on a fiberglass pillar. Described as “femme-savants,” the cuteness of the figures is subverted by their near cultish formations around the hovering brain. Feminine sweetness and naïveté is exists side by side with superhuman cranial capacity.
Allyson Mitchell is a Toronto artist, scholar, curator and activist. She works primarily in installation, sculpture and film. Using textile and abandoned craft, Mitchell explores the body and feminine sexuality through tropes of pop culture. She performs with Pretty, Porky and Pissed Off, a fat performance troupe. In addition to her art practice, she teaches in the Women Studies department at York University.
