Vagina Painting

Vagina Painting (After Kubota) is an homage to artist and Fluxus member Shigeko Kubota, who first performed a tongue and cheek piece called Vagina Painting in 1964 at a FLUXUS performance art event in New York City. At the time Shigeko Kubota was responding to the famous quote by Pierre-Auguste Renoir  where he stated that he “paints with his prick”. In Vagina Painting (After Kubota) I use my body to create a gestural abstract painting using red wine & gouache paint on canvas. Throughout this process I consider the colonial legacy of violence against women, specifically in the arts. I consider my phenomenological, or lived experiences, as a queer, sexualized, gendered and disabled bodied person ( I live with stage 4 Endometriosis that is characterized by chronic pain). I think of my body as both an object and subject,  and I often work with this tension  in this my performance work.

Vagina Painting was first performed for Not Sent Letters, performance meet-up, at VIVO Media Art Centre, Vancouver, 2017, and then at “Body Response” an Indigenous lead festival at Open Space, Victoria, Canada, 2018, and at the Zero Gravity International Performance Art Festival, 2019.