A female thing
Kati Sykes is the first to admit she is not a conventional artist about to open her first gallery show, and nor are her colleagues in 5femmes.
As the five women embark on their first show as the artistic troupe Female Artists Unify at the Tap Gallery over the coming week, Sykes wonders aloud, When do you call yourself an artist? This is our first exhibition as a group, so it sometimes is a little difficult to remember that you are an artist.
While the five -“ Anita Jokovich, Sarah Walters, Alison Smith, Tina Kubovec and Sykes -“ are committed artists, away from their easels and cameras they lead very different lives.
Three of the group are magazine art directors on such titles as Gourmet Traveller and Notebook, while Sykes is a classical music administrator and a former rock chick, having worked on tours by such acts as Kylie Minogue.
What all of us wanted to do with this was set up a platform to show our work, which is what we have done here, she explains. We are all very artistically driven and this is about promoting the work of the artistic female.
It is appropriate, then, that one of the themes of the new show is the celebration of the female body. While none of the artists identifies as lesbian, Sykes says they were inspired to express the many moods of the female body.
There are emotions and feelings so well expressed in the female form. There are moods you can capture by portraying a woman’s body that you could never do with a man’s body, she says. This show is about celebrating that.
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5femmes is on from Monday 2 October to Sunday 8 October at the Tap Gallery, Palmer St, Darlinghurst. Details at www.tapgallery.org.au.
