Allyson Mitchell: Radical Deep Lez Art
Allyson Mitchell utilizes space, scale, film, animation, sound, sculpture, lost materials, and color to create textures and meanings within the large plethora of her work. She criticizes socio-historical phobias of femininity, feminine bodies, colonial histories, as well as venturing into topics of consumption under capitalism, queer feelings, queer love, color and sexuality, fat being, fat shaming, vaginas/genital fears, cultural practices, and queer theory.
Her work Ladies Sasquatch, 2006–2010 is a commentary on the indigenous myth of Sasquatch and the racist symbolic implications it had for the settler colonial states of Canada and the U.S. Mitchell re-imagines this myth through a radical feminist lens where the Sasquatch is decolonized and embodies sexist tropes of queer bodies in regard to femininity’s ties to nature, the irrational, feeling, and emotion.
The piece utilizes scale, color, and texture to emphasize what is perceived as “unclean”, the ties to nature. It emphasizes sexuality through accentuated butt’s, shows realistic cellulite, and the space cultivates an emotionally charged sense of queer rage.
Other works by her critiquing soci-historical myth and practice are, Hungry Purse: The Vagina Dentata in Late Capitalism, 2004-ongoing and Micro Maxi-pad Cinemas, 2010. In both installations Mitchell utilizes a creation of enclosed spaces to reconstruct and present realities of feminine bodies and sexualities.
In the piece above Mitchell asks the viewer/participant to grapple with the fear of genitals, castration, a vagina of consumption, feminine sexuality, female bodies, and yonic spaces. In doing so, she utilizes mediums of craft supplies, furs, crocheted materials, rugs, and pillows to provide comfort within the space, and also a sense of crowding or unease as one struggles with the content they are addressing.
Similarly in, Micro Maxi-pad Cinemas, 2010 she critiques the positioning and fear of feminine bodies and realities by reconstructing a menstruation hut out of comforting cloth, rug, and pillow materials. Within the hut she evokes the feeling of shame that the huts have historically fostered by installing a television as an embedded critique on consumption and the way individuals are shamed for watching films/t.v. in solitude. The t.v. inside plays her films which adds a performative temporal aspect to the piece as a whole where different messages of radical queer politics are conveyed at different moments. The piece further serves as a criticism of queer spaces where comfort is used as a form of control, which she directly incites through the installation of the, “PRIDE is a pyramid scheme”, blanket she sewed in on the top of the hut.
One of the other largest motif’s in Mitchell’s work is the reality of feminine bodies, especially through consumption under capitalism, fat being, and fat shaming. Her piece, Fat Craft, is an ongoing practice of being under capital through which she creates and adds to a collection of crafts, never ending grocery lists, and busy work. This serves as a catharsis dealing with body image and fat shaming while also critiquing the constant becoming embodied in capitalist systems of (re)production.
the collection addresses the embodiment and materiality of bodies. It is concerned with the feeling and emotion behind the embodiment of being in a culture of fat shaming under a system of capitalistic consumption.
Other collections by her that tackle similar themes specifically with a focus on normalizing regimes of sexuality through mass media and cultural symbols, specifically playboy magazines.
Pieces by her such as Big Trubs, 2004 or The Fluff Stands Alone, 2003 utilize different mediums to critique playboy images. Big Trubs, 2004 criticizes scale and image in femininity. Furthermore, the accentuation of breast size, pubic hair, and body shape seek to make a bold statement about embodiment. The larger than life construct has also been featured in her film, Foodie. Her work, The Fluff Stands Alone, 2003 adds a critique of color represented in playboy magazines, as well as adding on to the model making the woman more realistic. Her medium of choice was a composition of different fabrics layered to produce the image.
Other work by Mitchell critique queer spaces, normative cannon, queer cannon, cultural symbols, and queer representations. Her piece, A Girl’s Journey to the Well of Forbidden Knowledge, 2010 is an ode to queer spaces that struggle under the age of rapid technological advancement and capital crises to maintain open and available. It further displays the Feminine embodiment burning an art history textbook that dictates a cannon excluding them, and regulating their creative possibilities.
While her series of pieces titled, Creep Lez, 2012 critique the privilege and knowledge production of queer theorists and academics that moderate discourse surrounding feminine issues. It also deals with issues of participation and resistance within oppressive systems, incoherence, categorization, and knowledge.
Allyson Mitchell has provided sweeping critiques throughout her career and embodies the queer rage and feminine empowerment her Deep Lez style promises. Her contribution to radical dyke politics and cultural commentary will remain pertinent to the political moment for years to come as capital seeks to reproduce the conditions she so adamantly resists.
