LAUREL MCKENZIE | 'Enfolded' | Acrylic on canvas / 18 x framed elements

The eighteen painted panels on stretched canvas that constitute the installation, Enfolded, reference fragments of classical and neo-classical marble sculptures that portray female bodies – bodies partly concealed and partly revealed by strategic drapery. Meaning attaches to representations of idealised, partly clothed female bodies. And while meanings vary over long spans of western art history and in different cultural contexts, sensuality is a consistent feature. The seductiveness of beautifully carved flesh and fabric folds in the quoted marble statuary is undeniable, but so too is the creation of persistent imaging stereotypes.

Enfolded’s depiction of disembodied fragments foreground the sculptors’ skillful direction of the viewer’s eye over the partly concealed body, where both poses and enfolding drapery (ambiguously) imply modesty and virtue. Placement of the painted fragments of draped bodies against a solid red background metaphorically situates the work in a museological context, reminiscent of the ‘salons’ of galleries built in an earlier era. Re-represented in this fashion, details of Greco-Roman deities and allegorical figures thus celebrate the artistry of the originators, while querying persistent conventions surrounding the imaging of women and their bodies.

LAUREL MCKENZIE | 'Enfolded' | 2025 | Acrylic on canvas | 18 x framed elements / 324 x 324 mm | H 1870 x W 3040 mm