We're pleased to share a new collection of etchings and lithographs from artist Flora McLachlan, 'Heroic Housework'.
About the collection, Flora says, 'In this series of etchings and lithographs, I want to examine my feelings about the epic mission and effort of housekeeping. I’ve been ambivalent about housework all my life, resenting it as an unpaid and unseen female-coded task that stands in the way of my true work. I’ve wanted to climb on the broomstick and fly away from the washing-up. But I also want to put sweeping in the stars and paint launderers on the cave wall alongside the hunters spearing wild boar.'
'Repetitive work has no triumphal end to it. Sadly, there is no glorious festal celebration for universal actions like mopping the floor, tidying, or the washing of clothes. The repetitions of printmaking echo the repetitions of housework. For me the rolling of the ink onto the litho stone is like making pastry, sponging the stone is like wiping the kitchen table, and the reiterated wiping and polishing of the inky etching plate belongs to the pre-fairy godmother Cinderella. It’s interesting that print is often seen as a lesser form of art because of this aspect of repetition, of the image multiplied. It feels oddly transgressive for me to equate printmaking with unpaid, unvalued housework instead of alchemy; but housekeeping should also be creative, magical and immortalising – a warmer, steadier, human way of making dirt into gold.'
The new collection is on dsiplay in the gallery, or can be viewed online.
