Linda Brescia: Skirts
Discover Linda Brescia's body of work examining the concept of women's visibility
Penrith Regional Gallery, Home of The Lewers Bequest
Generously donated by the artist to Penrith Regional Gallery in 2022
Linda Brescia
Linda Brescia is a Western Sydney-based artist who investigates the banalities and complexities of everyday life through painting, photography, sculpture and performance. Her works often reflect on rituals as performed in both private and public spaces.
Linda's painterly aesthetic connects with a history of female artists working with ideas of portraiture, representation, the human body and self-assertion. Through her work, Brescia moves through gestures of visibility and invisibility.
Informed by personal experiences as well as those from within her local community, Brescia draws on the rich history of resilience that exists within the lineage of women artists and authors, to create a space for under or misrepresented women to speak for themselves.
"Working within an expanded idea of portraiture, Brescia touches on the complexities of what it means to live as a woman in our contemporary moment."- Toby Chapman, Director Penrith Regional Gallery 2021
Skirts
Skirts developed during a process of community engagement whereby Brescia was embedded in Kingswood, a suburb of Penrith in Western Sydney, where she was working closely with local women to understand and facilitate a dialogue around visibility and safety.
Skirt #5 (2021) by This is one of thirteen artworks in the series Skirts by Linda Brescia, developed during a community engagement program with women from Kingswood, in Sydney's western suburbs. Each subject was asked to select a piece of fabric to either represent or conceal their identity. With the fabric selected, the women lay down while the artist traced their figure. The result is a series of deeply personal portraits, that enshrine women from our local community in the revered space of the gallery, both physically and now online.Penrith Regional Gallery, Home of The Lewers Bequest
This diverse group of women, who identified collectively as the "Skirts", were connected by shared concerns around gender expectations, ageism, violence against women and the barriers that can come between individual lives and community well-being.
"So, 100 years on and we’re still hearing that women are inferior to men. To wear a skirt in public would not only make a man look like a ’sissy’, but he would feel vulnerable.
Skirts aren’t for sissies. Let’s skirt the shirtfronters. Make a beeline to the a-line." - Linda Brescia, Artist 2021
During this yearlong engagement project, Linda Brescia worked on life sized portraits of the group. Initially asking the women to choose fabric designs that resonated with them, she captured the stances and postures of participants through body tracings.
Intended for public display, Brescia's portraits maintain a level of anonymity - a masking, a veiling - and ultimately an intimate universality. Individually and unified, the portraits represent the groups power and purpose.
"Skirts, above all, recognises women. The women in this story, in their infinite shades of identity, can be viewed as taking control of the narrative of the skirt. Poised between aesthetics and daily life, the skirt with its many permutations (including its absence) has the capacity to accommodate our desires and aspirations. In this C3West project, the skirt has shone as an emblem of the female condition for a group of women in a particular time and place; it has brought the prospect of a life away from violence and other constraints closer." - Jasmin Stephens, Independent Curator & Writer 2021
Power in Apparel: Linda Brescia's Skirts
Manifesto
In collaboration with Brescia and author Felicity Castagna, the Skirts cohort also devised a manifesto – a declaration that combines poetic observations by the women, as well as a list of actions or demands.
"In working towards writing this manifesto with women from the Kingswood community, I wanted to show that they see themselves – their wants and their needs – individually, both in opposition to each other and collectively. Their stories are all a part of a larger story about women and how they are seen and unseen in their place." - Felicity Castagna, Author & Facilitator 2021
Originally produced and presented by C3West on behalf of the Museum of Contemporary Art in partnership with Penrith City Council, the portraits were photographed, printed and hung as banners in Wainwright Park, Kingswood NSW from May 2021 to June 2022.
Brescia describes the project as giving visibility to the women as they set about owning the Park. Skirts takes “things that are personal and domestic and brings them outdoors”. Jasmin Stephens, Independent Curator & Writer 2021
A girl like you
In the 2022 survey exhibition LINDA BRESCIA, A GIRL LIKE YOU at Penrith Regional Gallery, the original artworks were displayed alongside a painted mural and performance of the manifesto. Additional portraits included authors and artists - generations of purposeful women.
These included contemporary figures Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins. For Brescia, these dual figures represent the varied experiences of women in the public sphere, as fierce advocates for safety and representation, as well as figures for whom anonymity is not an option.
Penrith Regional Gallery is committed to supporting and nurturing local artists. This body of work not only documents an important and dynamic artistic intervention within our local public space, it also represents and defines our community, both geographical and gendered.
Thank you to Linda Brescia, Felicity Castagna and the Skirts for participating in this project. Thank you to Jasmin Stephens, Pedro de Almeida, C3West & the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
All artwork copyright courtesy the artist
Linda Brescia Skirts (2021), installation view, Wainwright Park, Kingswood, NSW
Photo: Jessica Maurer.
Artist: Linda Brescia
Author & Facilitator: Felicity Castagna
Independent Curator & Writer: Jasmin Stephens
Senior Curator, C3West: Pedro de Almeida
Exhibition Curator, Penrith Regional Gallery: Toby Chapman, Director
