Amphora, 2023
felt, velvet, sequins, glass beads, thread, buttons, found items and lead
34 x 24 x 20 cm
This work represents an ancient vessel with motifs of storytelling.
By using soft sculpture Bencke has created an object with impermanent materials
that will ultimately disappear in conditions ceramics would otherwise endure.
However the urns construction suggests it has been found in pieces and
conserved as an object of value.
Olympe Vessel, 2023
felt, linen, sequins, thread
18.5 x 9 x 9 cm
Gillian Bencke made this vessel to reference the life of a feminist women, Olympe de Gouges, who lost her head in the french revolution for speaking out against a patriarchal world. Olympe was a playwright and political activist with views and demands that made her an enemy of the system she sought to make equal.
Even though the goalposts have moved on from brutal decapitation, to challenge the status quo is still difficult and risky for marginalised peoples in an increasingly inequitable world.
As a direct ancestor of Bencke's, de Gouges' words came with a personal power. Ignoring the confines of history, Olympe's views are still very much contemporary ones, as though crafted for our modern times. Bencke has used wool felt to piece together a vessel that suggests it is an artefact that has been discovered in pieces and repaired. On one side of the vessel is stitched an exact quote from Olympe's writing, on the other is stitched her decapitated head, symbolising her brilliant mind, which is being cradled in Bencke's own hand – the past being held up and honoured by the present.