Girls at Gaffa

Overview

The girls are taking over Gaffa Gallery this month. From July 20 all four galleries will be occupied by diverse exhibitions featuring an all-female line-up of artists and curators.

In Gallery 1 you'll see HEY GURL, a group show curated by gallery manager Kimberley Peel. Twenty female-identifying artists use a range of media (everything from puppet-making to photography to audiovisual installations) to respond to issues of identity and gender equality. Over in Gallery 2 is String Line, a solo show by Helen Amanatiadis that presents a series of sculptural and textile works, showcasing intricate techniques for working with string. Amanatiadis considers various types of string – "from fluorescent builders line to soft baby's nylon" – to investigate the significant role that string has played in human evolution and invention.

In Gallery 3 you can check out Amy Elizabeth's solo show Pin up Girl – a series of screen-printed illustrations responding to a resurgence of 1950s pin up culture in contemporary Australian society, and its connection to gender identity and notions of femininity. Finally, in Gallery 4 emerging curator Kristina Neumann draws together six ACT jewellery and object artists who work across a range of media (glass, metal, clay, wood and more) to reference "architecture, the body and the spaces in between."

In explaining the show's origins, Peel says 'We noticed that 75% of our 2016-17 exhibition program artists identify as female. I was first developing my own curatorial endeavour HEY GURL, and then I thought – why not extend this into Gaffa's gallery program?'

All four shows end July 31 so get in quick.

Image: smalltime magic, 'Distance Dialogues' 2017