Artistic Explorations of Queer and Gendered Landscapes

A secret language of stories combining sculpture and photography suggests New Work by Teri Claude & Kirstyn Russell. Claude’s sculptures express a longing for outdoor landscapes from the confines of interior materials while Russell highlights the color within the seemingly bleak through photographs; both create partial narratives with room for the viewer to project their own stories.

Femina Potens Gallery presents Claude & Russell from February 3rd-24th, 2006. The show combines sculpture and photography, approaching a similar subject matter using different media. The sculptures recreate objects from the landscape while the photographs explore the potential for the landscapes to be gendered. Kirstyn Russell’s work includes images from the series Outposts; photographing gay and lesbian bars in rural areas, the photos contain very few clues that let you know the true identity of these spaces. Teri Claude’s sculptures combine a feeling of benign domesticity with an aggressive phallic shape and attempts to express the paradox of this aggressive (phallic) domesticity.

The public is invited to a free reception with the artists on Friday February 3rd, 7-10pm at Femina Potens Gallery.

Teri Claude’s combination of domesticity and symbols of aggression “best describe what it’s like growing up on a military base, feeling safe in your military tract-housing, with jet aircraft tearing through the sky overhead everyday.” Claude utilizes her experience as a lesbian single mom in a similar manner, as characterized by “masculine” and “feminine” elements combining in unexpected ways.

Kirstyn Russell returned to San Francisco four years ago after living on the East Coast for 10 years. Searching beyond geographic boundaries into psychological, historic, and identity based understanding of the areas being photographed. “I am interested in looking at queer spaces where the expected signifiers are very subtle.”

Femina Potens is a nationally recognized art gallery and performance space dedicated to the advancement of women and trans-folk through art. Sponsored by Sister Spit and the Queer Cultural Center, with support from the San Francisco Arts Commission and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Femina Potens is one of the leading queer organizations in San Francisco. Femina Potens has been featured on the Australian television show, Out and About, Q-Television, the documentary TranArchy, Japan's Foil Magazine, Bitch Magazine, and the San Francisco Guardian, which called Femina Potens a crucial bit of justice.