Mercredi 11 Mars 2015 11:15:36 par actuphoto dans Expositions

The Michael Hoppen Gallery is very proud to unveil Samantha Roddick's first artistic project, Hidden Within. Best known as the original founder of the erotic boutique, Coco de Mer, Roddick has long been exploring our cultural relationship to sex. In this project, which has occupied her for the last couple of years, she turns her attention to the subject of the sexual objectification of women. Roddick takes as her creative muse the twentieth century Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino and in particular examines his erotic polaroids through which she seeks to explore the notion of the male gaze and those feelings of shame and anxiety that persist in relation to sex in our society.

© Samantha Roddick

Hidden Within' explores a cultural tendency towards the objectification of women and questions the religious roots of sexual shame. Integral to the project is Roddick's choice of presentation. The pictures, all hand-printed, are encased in intricately embroidered ceremonial velvets reminiscent of religious altarpieces. The artist has chosen an assortment of age-old symbolic references to draw in her audience. There is the gold thread of the DNA helix representing hidden information and its shape, in turn, mirrors that of the snakes' which accompany it. The bee and its hexagonal honeycomb refer to sacred geometry and the architecture inherent within nature. Every detail has been considered and perfected. Roddick has taken Mollino's obsession and made it very much her own.