The Egg, The Womb, The Head and The Moon.

Author: Paula Chambers

Biography

Paula Chambers is an artist and arts educator currently living and working in West Yorkshire. Paula’s art practice is a three dimensional visual exploration of the dilemma of what it means to inhabit a female body. Investigating through technologies of making the deconstruction and re-appropriation of the banal, the ready-made and domestic objects. Paula has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally; with an impressive back catalogue of solo shows, including most recently “The Domestic Pirate” at 64 Wellington St. Leeds. Paula studied under Griselda Pollock at the University of Leeds for the MA Feminist History, Theory, Criticism and Practice in the Visual Arts; this course had a profound and long lasting impact on the focus and direction of Paula’s art practice and academic interests. Paula has lectured extensively in Fine Art and is currently year tutor on BA(Hons) Art and Design (Interdisciplinary) at Leeds College of Art.  

Personal Statement

My current art making practice is a three dimensional visual exploration of the dilemma of what it means to inhabit a female body. Investigating through technologies of making the deconstruction and re-appropriation of the banal, the ready-made and domestic objects, I create sculptural works and installations that are contextually complex and visually multi layered. The work is subtle and surprising, disturbing and amusing. I alter and adapt ready-made objects that stand in as signifiers for the female body. I cast objects in unusual or unsuitable materials, always contextually relevant, with the intention of suggesting alternate readings of the original object. The work is intended to be beautiful; it is lovingly and intricately made often using skills and techniques traditionally used by women but often redundant now in modern life or relegated to sub categories of craft or hobbyist. Through the subversion of materials, process and as a consequence the language and meaning of objects, I suggest a fuller more complicated level of understanding of being female that acknowledges the complexities of living in 21st century society. My intention is to promote in the viewer an intriguing and complex response encompassing the cultural, political, social, historical and mythological agendas that inform our current perspective on femaleness and its often contradictory meanings in contemporary society.

Website: http://www.paulachambers.co.uk