The Un-gendered Object: An exploration of abjection and identity through art practice.
“Human perception of the body is so acute and knowledgeable that the smallest hint of a body can trigger recognition.” —Jenny Saville (Gagosian, n.d.).
Molly Baker (b.2001) is a lesbian multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Naarm/Melbourne. Although they majored in painting, throughout the last year their practice has expanded to soft sculptural works which are presented alongside their oil paintings. Through the reading of Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler, Molly explores themes of gender, abjection and the body.
My works aim to make the internal external; to deconstruct external/internal facets of the body, leaving only an amalgam of flesh and folds. I want to play on the contrast between plush soft pastels, pearls and felt; with body horror, viscera and flesh. Through depicting distorted organic forms in soft sculptures and paintings, I want to test the limits of personal recognition. Is it still a body? Is it still anything at all, if just reduced to flesh? Or will it have been reduced to an ‘Un-gendered Object’?
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Molly Baker, with ‘Mother’ and ‘Untitled’, 2024. Photo: Ourania Pappas
