After some time away from the spotlight, Unit London are delighted to reintroduce Zoe Buckman!
Zoe is an exciting young artist who uses a range of media to explore themes of feminism, mortality and equality. It could be claimed that Buckman’s artistic career really began to take off in 2015 when her solo show Present Life took place at Garis and Hahn in New York. The show looked at the temporal nature of mortality through the lens of childbirth. Buckman’s plastinated placenta – encased in marble after the near fatal birth of her daughter – appeared in the show.
Buckman’s other notable shows include Every Curve at PAPILLION ART in 2016 and Let Her Rave at Gavlak Los Angeles in 2018. Every Curve combined Buckman’s love for the lyrics of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls with her feminist ideology. The installation was comprised of vintage lingerie embroidered with rap lyrics – exploring the conflict between feminism and hip-hop. Every Curve “illustrates the oppositional perceptions of woman as sexual object, woman as love, and woman as creator; perceptions which, with recourse to history, remain unchanged”, stated art critic Hannah-Rosanne Poulton of A Taste for Art.
Let Her Rave was a response to a line in Keats’ poem Ode on Melancholy. The show wrestled with contemporary notions of femininity: namely, what it is to be a woman shackled by a patriarchal society. Though she is a long time admirer of Keats, Buckman was unable to resolve the line ‘Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows / Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave.’ Sculptures of boxing gloves trimmed with vintage wedding dresses hung from the ceiling as well as a powerful neon adorned with wedding veils, the show explored the complex aggressions that women face each day and the idea that they must fight in response. Furthermore, in terms of matrimony, these subjects suggest the weight, strength, and delicacy of marriage and its impact on womanhood.
Zoe Buckman also exhibited as part of our 2018 group show 21st Century Woman.