Art: angela ellsworth: seer bonnets - a continuing offense

angela ellsworth: seer bonnets - a continuing offense


a seer bonnet
image © designboom


angela ellsworth is an american multidisciplinary artist whose paintings, drawings, installations
and performances explore the female body in its various contexts and constraints.
her work considers subjects such as physical fitness, endurance, social ritual, religious tradition,
performance art and american colonial history. ellsworth's 'seer bonnets: a continuing offense'
(2009-2010) refers to her rejected mormon heritage presented through series of antiquated
pioneer women's bonnets, constructed out of thousands of pearl-tipped corsage pins embedded
into fabric with their points directed inwards. the small, fetish-like objects not only refer to the
tradition of craft work in the home - women's work - but also stand as disembodied memorials
to the lives suffering cruelty, submission and control.

'seer bonnets: a continuing offense' is currently being exhibited as part of the 17th biennale of sydney.



decorative emblems are integrated into the bonnets
image © designboom



detail of the corsage pins
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image © designboom


full view of a seer bonnet
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image © designboom



installation view of 'seer bonnets: a continuing offence' at the biennale of sydney
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seer bonnet
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seer bonnet (detail)
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up close of the pleats
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view of the tens of thousands of pins used to construct the bonnets
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image © designboom



all of the corsage pins are arranged to point inwards
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side view of one of the bonnets decorative detail
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image © designboom



image © designboom



detail of the 'ribbons' hanging down from each bonnet
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detail
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side view
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installation view