Upcoming: March 2025

Equity Gallery

245 Broome St

New York, NY 10002

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Recent Work by Catherine Lepp, Kirsty Martinsen, Becky Kinder

March 6 2025

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Kirsty Martinsen

Bodiness: skin 2024/5

Artist Books

Pencil, pastel, acrylic and pigment on paper

24cm x16cm x 20

 

The books are part of the somatic work I’m doing, working with the sensations, memories and connections arising from my body. The contemplation for this next series is around skin. I call is Bodiness: skin because it falls under the Bodiness umbrella of my work. Bodiness is an idea I’ve worked on since 2016 about my relationship with my body as it changes with MS.  Bodiness: skin explores touch and my aversion to being touched and touching another’s skin. Skin, as a barrier, as defence, as sweaty, clammy revulsion or sensual necessity. 

 

MS has claimed the fine motor skills and dexterity that made it possible  for me to maintain the easel painting I was trained in. I now only have the disappearing usauge of my right hand, so now I use whatever is available to me- my wheelchair, my body, my life. In my recent Bodiness performance I painted a large canvas on the ground with the tyres of my wheelchair and large brushes taped to broom handles. Following on from the performance, with a desire to keep working in this way with large brushes, I began combining the artists books I’ve been working on with the large brushes, in a vertical rather than horizontal way. This way they cascade down the wall and talk to each other in a way the the books on the floor don’t.