Julie Farstad: More More More!
Farstad’s eight large doll paintings are the strongest pieces in her show at Zolla/Lieberman, which also includes 21 other works: smaller paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, an installation, and a sound piece. All eight depict the same baby doll, based on photographs Farstad took of it in many poses. The dolls enact little scenarios related to childhood or motherhood, many of them kinky or nasty, against backgrounds of solid colors: red, blue, purple, yellow. In Play Nice With Kitty–in which one of the two figures seems to be riding on a stuffed kitten–the dolls’ glowing green outfits form a sensuous contrast with the reddish pink background. In Bad Bad Girls, one doll bends over suggestively while the other lifts up her skirt–is she about to spank or undress her? Kissy Kissy shows three scenarios against a pink backdrop. Reading from left to right, the first shows a large doll kissing a smaller one, suggesting mother and child. In the middle, two large dolls hold two smaller ones together so that their lips touch–mothers making their babies kiss. And at upper right, a larger doll is spanking a smaller one. Farstad’s mix of affection and aggression heightens the impact of both, suggesting that love, pain, and power are intertwined.
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Several events in Farstad’s childhood help explain the multiple associations dolls call up for her. The same mom who bought her dolls in frilly clothes saw herself as a feminist and “almost never dressed us in dresses and little girl stuff,” Farstad says. “My mother’s feminism also had nothing to do with being sexual individuals.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Fred Camper.
