EMMA MAYE GIBSON & MS SAFFAA
PORTAL
The 'Pussy Print' has been an ongoing embodied and experiential aspect of performance critter Betty Grumble for many years. First manifested as an intuitive action, the prints have become a way into reclamation energy, joy energy, rage energy, love energy and hope energy. Each print is unique, a portal done with eco-gentle paints and with respect to all bodies, printers and players before, alongside and ahead. In this exhibition, Emma Maye Gibson and her co-spirit Betty Grumble have invited visual artist and friend born of great shared grief and respect, Ms Saffaa, to engage with a selection of the prints, to create a series of work that we hope vibrates with pleasure, possibility and a yielding to that big cosmic ache our bodies all reach and dance with. The work worlds with performance piece The Unshame Machine, where Grumble produces 1000 pussy prints in the space of an hour. Ms Saffaa brings the power of her work as a radical mural and printmaker as a way into considering the display of the Cunt work, playing with size, form and mixed media. The two share defiance, love of vitality through colour and a deep respect for the interwoven aspects of liberation and self love. Enjoy the portal.
With special thanks to Thom Smyth, Elizabeth Burton, Annie Sprinkle, Charlotte Farrell, Victoria Spence, Dandrogyny, Stereogamous, Candy Royalle, Ash Bee, Megana Holiday, Stelly G, Iya Ya Ya, Niveen Abdelatty, Karmyn Gibson, Airspace and all of your powerful bodies.
The artists acknowledge that they work and live on Gadigal/Bidjigal Country. They pay their respects to the Elder's of these communities. Always Was Always Will Be Aboriginal Land.
Ms. Saffaa is an Artist and activist. She was reported to the Saudi authorities when her artwork I Am My Own Guardian went viral in 2016, and has since become a political dissident. She has been exhibiting and creating murals locally and internationally and her work was recently on display at the US Congress. She is shortlisted for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award
Emma Maye Gibson (AKA Betty Grumble) is performance artist living in Warrane/Sydney. Largely through the avatar/war mask/love letter/critter of Grumble she engages her body as a hopeful and medicinal site for catharsis and pleasure. Often moving in a genre smash of ritual theatre, autobiography, cabaret, performance art and multi-media. She is a proud ecosexual and believes in art as an action of her spirituality. She has her Masters in Fine Arts/Arse and has presented work at The Sydney Opera House, Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe, Perth & Adelaide Fringes, The Melbourne Comedy Festival, The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Belvoir St Theatre, The Bearded Tit, Red Rattler Theatre, OUTsider Festival (Austin,Texas), MoMA (NYC), Joe's Pub (NYC), The Glory (London), LiveWorks, AsiaTOPA, Dark Mofo, Mona Foma, Berlin Fringe and beyond. She believes in the flesh riot and is currently engaged in developing a new works under the guidance of mentors Annie Sprinkle, Elizabeth Burton and Victoria Spence. Major works include: Sex Clown Saves The World, Love & Anger, The Unshame Machine, Grumble n' Friends, Grumble Boogie, Goddess - The Elizabeth Burton Story & Enemies of Grooviness Eat Shit.
