Lodden, Tableau (mallow), Goosebump and Lick
As part of Fresh Cut, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.
7 Aug – 18 Sep 2010
Group show included Sally Golding, Kelly Hussey-Smith, Fiona Mail, and Elizabeth Willing.
‘Elizabeth Willing explores material and sensual aspects of food and food imagery. She is particularly drawn to sweets. She transforms a William Morris wallpaper pattern by retracing it with lollies. In a video-performance, she licks her way through a pane of toffee-glass. She studs a wall with Pfeffernüsse (German biscuits) then renders it in white icing; here and there she nibbles away at the surface revealing the brown gingerbread beneath. She compresses a mattress of marshmallow (garnished with toasted coconut) between tabletops, as if making a giant cream-biscuit. She throws gobstoppers into a concrete mixer, whose 'big mouth' grinds them down over the course of the show. Willing is entranced by the metaphorical and formal possibilities of her chosen media. On the one hand, she puts a feminist spin on being identified with 'sugar and spice and all things nice'; on the other, she seems genuinely distracted by the architectural potential of foodstuffs.’
- Robert Leonard, Director IMA
