We soften male violence, calling it “violence against women.” Instead of treating the cause, we mitigate symptoms.
Lydia Pettit isn’t shy. Her artwork confronts viewers, demanding eye contact. Using herself as a model, she offers her body for judgment and reckoning. She leaves the audience to question their views on sexual abuse, trauma, body politics, and mental health.
I first saw her work in an article by Dazed reviewing Bitches in Heat, a duo exhibition at Guts Gallery with Lydia Pettit and Olivia Sterling. The work explores growing awareness of women’s right to define their sexuality, taking a dark, feral view of what is unleashed when constraints are removed.
In her work Dog Woman (After Rego), Pettit paints herself rabid on all fours, nude against a saturated red ground, and foaming at the mouth. Her pose, inspired by Paula Rego’s 1994 pastel drawing, marks the transformation from a woman living within externally imposed boundaries of desire to one who is fully expressing herself, losing herself to what she’s shut away. She told Dazed, “I wanted to show how frightening it feels to encounter your sexuality after it has been locked away for a decade.”
We’ve been told to cover up and close our legs, blamed for the actions of men, and pressured to deny our wants. I wondered if other women felt the same way, the two-sided guilt of not fully expressing ourselves and not holding back enough. Pettit’s paintings tell us, tell me, we’re not alone. They tell us to lean into the thrill of unleashing a ravenous monster.
Sterling and Pettit confront sexuality and body politics simultaneously. “This ‘demonic’ force [desire] is particularly overwhelming if you possess an ‘undesired’ body,” says Sterling to Dazed. This nuance pushes the conversation from merely women expressing their sexuality, to what kind of woman is allowed to express their sexuality – and who sets those rules.
Society allows thin, white, cis-gendered women to desire. We’re told their desire is palatable – in watered-down doses – and is meant to survive on external, male validation. Pettit and Sterling’s work opposes the relegation of larger bodies as undesirable, tackling the conversation from two sides with rabid self-portraiture and parodied consumption.
Pettit created an animalistic series of self-portraits for this exhibition. Her figure lives in a horrific no-mans land, akin to something from a Stephen King novel. Backlit by red, and caught in a warm spotlight like an animal in the field at night, her figure is apprehended in heat – she isn’t posing for it. Skilled use of light and color allows Pettit to fragment her figure, placing the eyes and face in shadow as in Hunger.
Her work leans into an 80s horror aesthetic, transmogrifying the body into a demonic animal. Her final work called Entry Points shows her climbing through a window, sharpened talons scraping against the glass, and eyes hollow and red. Her portraits depict a woman who is her desire, not an expression but the embodiment of.
Pettit’s work uses her body as a medium, a tool to make her experiences universal. She’s saying, “Here I am, where are you?”
A recent showing with Dinner Gallery at the Armory Show featured a video installation of The Body. The film depicts Pettit nude in a white void, straddling a titanium white replica of her body, hair and all. For 4 minutes and 23 seconds, she stabs herself over and over again watching as black blood sprays from the wounds. The film ends with her collapsing beside herself and clasping hands with the body she just violently stabbed.
Each of her works is an opportunity to confront our relationships with ourselves, our resentment and anger versus the care and love we deserve. The Body is referenced in her final work for Bitches in Heat, titled Will You Keep Me Here Forever? A 63-inch wide wooden platform sits on the floor with a trap door chained to a lock, open just far enough for a white hand with black claws to reach out. A symbol of the cage we keep our bodies and desires locked in.
It’s not often women are permitted to unleash. When does it even feel safe to bare our sexuality? Pettit’s work shows us the choice to let the feral, disgusting, terrifying, incredible, bold, combative sides of ourselves out to play is ours. Her work is saying to set ourselves free.
Essie Somma is an artist and freelance writer exploring beauty and difficulty within the human experience. She has been traveling full-time for two years, learning about new places and cultures, and bringing all of her experiences to her work. She feels endlessly grateful for getting to share her work with others.
