Life on Venus II | The Human, Timed Auction

"My figurative practice explores liminality, performativity and the discomfort surrounding embodiment and sexuality, particularly during adolescence. Slouching with silky limbs, captured in staccato poses, The Shakers are a collection of colourful anti-hero type players. Each character is disguised in masquerade and costume, their gender ambiguous, shown to be free, law-less and without boundaries. Depicted as dancing, they quite literally shake, both as an expression of trauma and as a way to find relief. Influenced by archeological aesthetic, contemporary dance and the mimetic relationship between women and queer men. I sculpt and paint from a collected archive of Ancient Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculpture, interwoven with myth and folk-lore, bringing together heterogeneous elements in order to find an in-between space. With reference to animal hybrids and archetypal imagery, The Shakers mirror the transformational nature of fired ceramic, ink and pigment. Using a loose touch, the characters and the mediums themselves suggest narratives of metamorphoses and restoration.' - Amy McMillan, 2020