• Installation view of The Belly and the Members, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, 2024
  • Installation view of The Belly and the Members, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, 2024
  • Installation view of The Belly and the Members, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, 2024
  • Installation view of The Belly and the Members, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, 2024
  • Grace Wright, As Above, So Below, 2024, acrylic on linen, 180 x 130 cm
  • Grace Wright, You Are More Than What You Know, 2024, acrylic on linen, 180 x 130 cm
  • Caroline Rothwell, Metamorphosis of Plants 1 Arrangement for Darwin (Pteris pedata), 2018, Belgian linen, PVC, 23 carat gold, hydrostone, thread, gesso, 107 x 107 cm
  • Caroline Rothwell, Metamorphosis of Plants 2 Arrangement for Darwin (Sicyos villosa, extinct), 2018, Belgian linen, PVC, 23 carat gold, hydrostone, thread, gesso, eyelashes, 107 x 107 cm
  • Caroline Rothwell, Metamorphosis of Plants 3 Arrangement for Vavilov (Triticum vulgare), 2018, Belgian linen, PVC, 23 carat gold, hydrostone, thread, gesso, 107 x 107 cm
  • Caroline Rothwell, <>iTongue with hyacinth and pendulum, 2023 Canvas, gypsum cement, stainless steel, copper, britannia metal, epoxy glass, hardware, 128 x 25 x 38 cm
  • Cybele Cox, Baubo Sacred Fool, 2016, hand coiled ceramic, porcelain slip, glaze, gold lustre, 212 x 55 x 55 cm
  • Cybele Cox, Queen Belly Face (I) , 2014, hand-built ceramic, glaze, gold lustre, 50 x 20 x 25 cm
  • Cybele Cox, Queen Belly Face (II), 2024, hand-built ceramic, glaze, gold lustre, 65 x 20 x 23 cm
  • Karen Black, Anything she wants to be, 2023, oil on canvas, 152 x 182.5 cm
  • Karen Black, Mountains of lakes, 2023, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 97 cm
  • Juz Kitson,The Root of the Impulse, 2024, Jingdezhen porcelain, enamel and timber, 115 x 56 x 53 cm
  • Mehwish Iqbal, Arz-e-Pak, 2024, paper, hand-embroidery, in-lay of 24-carat silver leaf, silkscreen, 100 x 106cm
  • Sarah Drinan, Closing in, 2023, oil and acrylic on canvas, 120 x 142 cm
  • Sarah Drinan, Four women, 2023, oil and acrylic on canvas, 100 x 120 cm
  • Solomon Kammer, Proprietary Limited, 2023, synthetic polymer and oil on aluminium panel, 150 x 400 cm
EXHIBITION

Karen Black, Cybele Cox, Sarah Drinan, Mehwish Iqbal, Solomon Kammer, Juz Kitson, Caroline Rothwell and Grace Wright

The Belly and the Members

3 – 24 Feburary 2024

Yavuz Gallery is pleased to present The Belly and the Members, a group exhibition of works by Karen Black, Cybele Cox, Sarah Drinan, Mehwish Iqbal, Solomon Kammer, Juz Kitson, Caroline Rothwell and Grace Wright.

The exhibition takes its title from Aesop’s fable, in which the members of the body rebel against the belly, believing her idle and self-indulgent. The feet stand still, the hands won’t lift a finger, and the mouth refuses food. The members soon find that they can’t survive without the belly and repent their folly, acknowledging that each part of the body sustains the rest. The artists in this exhibition reimagine this figure as flesh, myth and landscape, embracing her as a container of multitudes. They shift well-worn perspectives on the body politic to reclaim the belly as a symbol of resilience and a seat of feminine power.

In her accompanying essay, celebrated playwright, novelist and screenwriter Suzie Miller — the author of Prima Facie (2019) and Jailbaby (2023) — reflects on The Belly and the Members as “a courageous and form-bending exploration of the human body. The body has been co-opted, admired, sold, touched, tasted, beaten, imprinted, raped, medicalised, spiritualised, colonised, traded, desired, used, killed, legislated against, denigrated, objectified, sexualised and de-sexualised. … We are confronted by the unexamined sense of our own form, made aware of how we have been trained to accept control and definition. This exhibition is a lens through which we see an exquisite new mode of self-determination.”