Before you dry retch, artist Andrea Hasler’s work, Matriarch, is more than a mere attempt at revulsion.

Matriarch references the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, a historic protest in which 30,000 women gathered at a British air force base to stand against nuclear weapons. According to Hasler, the work metaphorically “(takes) the notion of the tents which were on site during the women’s peace camp as the container for emotions and (humanizes) these elements to create emotional surfaces.”

Using the visual medium of sculpted fiber-glass covered with wax, Hasler insinuates the human body – with equal parts inference to our insides as well as outsides.

With skin serving as the driving metaphor here to echo the historical context of the peace camp, Hasler says “this skin layer (is) sort of the container for emotion, or sort of the container to hold emotion, as in the skin holding emotion.” 

Deep. But being the lowbrow scum I am, I couldn’t help but think of Ron Burgandy’s glass case of emotion .

Hasler speaks at length about Matriarch and similar, fleshy works in this video. They’re currently on display in an exhibition called Embrace the Base in Berkshire, England.

[Via.]

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