THE KITCHEN

Robin Weltsch

The soft skin of a kitchen pink
Is openers, strainers, blenders
Is cups, pots and hot ovens
Is boxes, cans and glass packages
Is faucets and nippled knobs
A toaster, juicer and waffler
All pink skinned
How would you like your eggs done
this morning?

– Robin Weltsch

“Vicky Hodgett, Susan Frazier and Robin Weltsch’s Nurturant Kitchen featured “Eggs to Breasts”, a pink kitchen with walls covered in breasts, evokes woman as a feeder in the heart of the house. Woman feeds with her kitchen, feeds children with her breasts and feeds man with her body. Culturally propagated stereotypes of womanhood are obsessively repeated in the kitchen – the colour pink and breasts.
Rather than celebrating these feminine attributes, a claustrophobic and surrealist cavern is created, reminiscent of Bourgeois’s grotesque, anthropomorphic body parts, and Yayoi Kusama’s repetitive dot works, which symbolised her decent into madness. The approximation of eggs and breasts also suggest a woman’s reproductive capabilities and thus her primary function, as well as a shortened evolutionary path – from egg (a foetus) to breast (a mother).”

Berlinde de Bruyckere – Schmerzenmann I (Man of Pain I) 2006, Wax, Polyester and Iron, David Roberts Collection, London, United Kingdom

Berlinde de Bruyckere – We are all flesh (Istanbul) (We are all flesh) 2011-2012 Horse skin, epoxy resin, iron Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Giminiano, Italy / Beijing, China / Le Moulin, France.

Berlinde de Bruyckere – Schmerzenmann II (Man of Pain II) 2006 Wax, polyester and iron David Roberts Collection, London, UK