YELLOW WALLPAPER
Kate Bohunnis, Sarah Contos, Narelle Desmond, Eugenia Lim, Nell, Jahnne Pasco-White, Heather B. Swann, Julia Trybala, Marian Tubbs, Michelle Ussher
21 August – 4 September 2021

STATION | MELBOURNE

Yellow Wallpaper is a group show of ten artists, inspired by the early feminist text ‘The Yellow Wall-paper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Published in 1892, the short story illustrated 19th century attitudes towards women’s physical and mental health, and the oppressive nature of gender roles. The text is written as the diary of a woman who, in order to recover from a bout of ‘nervous depression’, has been isolated in a room decorated in ugly yellow wallpaper, with which she becomes increasingly obsessed:

“It is the strangest yellow, that wall paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw - not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things... It is like a bad dream. It creeps all over the house.”

As the narrator descends further into madness, she imagines a woman trapped inside the wallpaper which she must set free. The story is an early example of a female writer voicing the struggles women face on a daily basis; the yellow wallpaper representing the structures of patriarchal society that entrap and confine women.

Intended to be presented at The Hotel Windsor as part of Spring1883, Yellow Wallpaper showcases a group of artists whose work explores liminal spaces and thresholds, physical vs. psychological spaces, traditional gender roles, the domestic sphere, female madness and hysteria, and representations of women.

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Yellow Wallpaper
Yellow Wallpaper 2021
installation view

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Yellow Wallpaper
Yellow Wallpaper 2021
installation view

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Yellow Wallpaper
Yellow Wallpaper 2021
installation view

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Yellow Wallpaper
Yellow Wallpaper 2021
installation view

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Yellow Wallpaper
Yellow Wallpaper 2021
installation view

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Yellow Wallpaper
Yellow Wallpaper 2021
installation view

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Yellow Wallpaper
Yellow Wallpaper 2021
installation view

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Kate Bohunnis
with each little death #3 2020
stainless steel
230.0 x 90.0 cm

Rosebush

Sarah Contos
Rosebush I 2021
hand cast aluminium, stainless hardwares, fabric, poly-fibre
137.0 x 58.0 x 20.0 cm

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Sarah Contos
Rosebush II 2021
hand cast aluminium, stainless hardwares, fabric, poly-fibre
78.0 x 44.0 x 19.0 cm

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Nell
The ghost who walks will never die (silver) 2021
nickel plated bronze
23.0 x 22.0 x 22.0 cm, edition of 5 + 2AP

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Narelle Desmond
Whose a better lifter? 2021
wooden ladder, timber frame, acrylic, cardboard, black brass fittings
362.0 x 40.0 cm

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Narelle Desmond
The wind and more 2021
wooden ladder, timber frame, brass fittings
268.0 x 41.0 cm

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Jahnne Pasco-White
Rearranging my body (1) 2021
beeswax crayon, earth pigments, cotton, linen, beetroot and olive dyed cotton, pencil on canvas
144.0 x 202.0 cm

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Jahnne Pasco-White
Rearranging my body (2) 2021
earth pigments, turmeric dyed cotton, linen, pencil, beeswax crayon, cotton thread, canvas
182.0 x 120.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
The well 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
The rock 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
You can tell me anything 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
Anything. You can tell me. 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
Blood nose 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
Briar rose 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
Tell me anything 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
Uxorious lung 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
A divine comedy 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Heather B. Swann
Lovers Rock 2021
ink and acrylic on wood panel
40.0 x 40.0 cm

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Julia Trybala
I always lock the door when I creep by daylight 2021
oil on canvas
152.0 x 122.0 cm

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Marian Tubbs
we say funny things hoping something romantic will happen 2017
pigment on silk
100.0 x 75.0 cm, edition 1 of 2 + AP

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Michelle Ussher
Yellow Eyes Burn and Return (Bitches are Witches) 2013
oil on paper

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Michelle Ussher
Two Eyeballs on the Run — Looking for a New Head to House. Part One 2021
oil on linen
85.0 x 115.0