Kiki Smiths art, often craft-oriented media explores the connection human connection to a range of attitudes. Her works display a link between the scientific, personal, political and spiritual connection to the human body. Smith’s works have a socio-political context that is evident throughout all her pieces. Through her work Smith forces her audience to face issues within society. The issues range from the issues of health, gender, sexuality and the self.

As a feminist artist, Smith very much focuses on the female body and its biological systems in order to construct a metaphor for the social issues surrounding it. Themes of birth, regeneration, sustenance and the female body are frequently evident within her works. It has been a career long endeavor for Smith to create and construct art that could only have been made by a woman as she attempts to express the universal concerns from a female perspective.

The media in which Smith predominately uses, very much adds to the meaning that she attempts to construct within her works. It is printmaking that draws her to the concept of repetition and how it is so deeply connected with repetition In her series of prints titled “Untitled” Smith states that her interest in printmaking is that it is uniqueness versus repetition as printmaking can mimic what we are as humans; we are all the same yet everyone is different. It is through her material and technique that Smith is able to construct a deeper meaning. In nearly all her works there is a connecting theme throughout. It is through these prints that Smith is able to portray meaning. She uses doilies in develop a greater meaning as it the fragility of the female reproductive system and its ability that she is trying to present to her audience.

Smith’s later works included a range of feminine symbols that culminated into a series of works depicting fragmented breasts and vaginas. Through this Smith challenged the predominately male dominated industry. Smith inspired by the women’s movement was focused largely on traditionally feminine craft techniques and explicit feminine imagery that often revolved around the female body.

Smith’s depictions of the female body have always challenged social taboos that are so evidently embedded within societies. It is through her works and the carefully chosen media that she is able to present her meaning to the audience. It is through her works that the socio-political context is evident as the first wave of feminist art, presented female genitals not for an erotic gesture however a political one.

Fiona Hall

Known for her use of intricate craftwork contemporary artist Fiona Hall is able to bring to light the issues that a modern society face such as consumerism and globalization. Hall creates connection between humans and their luster for consumer products through a range of materials that very much distinguish the disturbing attachment that humans have with various products.

Hall very much claims craft as her art, as her works are constructed through a range of different mediums, such as sculpture, photography, beadwork, painting, mix-media shredding and knitting. It is through her use of media that she is able to create a distinct link between meaning and context.



It is in Halls work “Medicine bundle for the non-born baby” that she is able to visually construct meaning and context to the audience. The work focuses on the dependence that humans have grown on consumer products. Hall also attempts to draw our attention to the idea that as a consumerist society we are also willing to feed our children all types of preservatives and chemicals. Hall uses shredded up coke cans that are kitted together to make a babies jacket, booties and bottles. The artwork investigates the history of Coca Cola and its medicinal purposes in the United States. The use of the Coco-Cola brand is not only a representation of the chemicals that parents allow their children to consume it is also used as a symbol of globalism and capitalism. It is obvious that Halls use of medium is vital to how the audience interprets her work. It is through the use of this specific subject matter that the socio-political context is made extremely evident.



Hall also uses installation pieces in order to construct a distinct connection between humans and their connection with the environment. Although Hall focuses on the negative impact that humans have on the environment and the harm they inflict upon it. In order to express the meaning of her works Hall uses day to day objects in order to strike a deeper connection between the installation and the audience. Her carefull use of material to portray meaning within her works is very much a kin to her personal aesthetic. The use of small glass beads in her installation constructs a deeper meaning to her work as a it creates a distinct connection between sea life and its fragility. She makes this clear in her statement that the beads a representation of “offshore trading between wastewater runoff and the declining aquatic environments of the ocean.(Ewington, 2005, p.150) It is through this piece that Hall is able to invite the audience the connection between human action and it effect on the environment, in the case the ocean. In order to really have make evident her meaning Hall uses plastic pip in order to distinctly portray her meaning. The glass beads run into plastic pipes, this enforces her meaning. It is through the juxtaposition that Hall is able to visually describe the connection between human action and its impact of sea life. Through her works Hall is able to bring to light the impacts of subconscious connection between humans and their behaviors’ and their subconscious desire for consumer goods.

Both Smith and Hall both have distinctive personal aesthetics they both some how aim to empashise the connections that humans have with the environment, their bodies and the world. Hall constructs her meaning through the use of her materials such as coke cans, delicate glass beads and ordinary objects she is able to communicate the humans desire for consumer products and their subconscious impact on the environment. Smith uses the art of printmaking and sculpture to demonstrate the connection that humans have with their own bodies and what that connection means. Both artists are unified by the underlying focus, socio-political context and message that is evident within their works. The message is that humans have an underlying connection to all aspects of nature, each other and society is displayed in the must see exhibition “Connections”.


Bibliography

Experiences with Printmaking: Kiki Smith Expands the Tradition
by Wendy Weitman
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2003/kikismith/pdf/essay (6/08/11)

Fiona Hall, By Rachel Roberts
http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/fiona-hall (8/8/2011)

Ewungton. J (2005), Fiona Hall, Piper Press, Annandale