Curators Introductions to Solo Exhibitions – The Apron Show 1982

Dorothy Farr  curator, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON

This Exhibition is Mary Rawlyk’s second at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. Her exhibition of 1974 presented images of common household phenomena, perhaps more familiar to women, for example of boiling water, sewing, or ironing. The present exhibition extends that theme but with the added tension of a feminist perspective.

By selecting the image of a party apron for this series of printed works, Mary Rawlyk immediately makes ridiculous the notion of feminine glamour harnessed to household labour and in doing so makes a more universal statement. The party apron is a contradiction within itself. At the same time, she prints directly from aprons, or uses photographic images of them to exploit with immediacy the aesthetic qualities of texture and shape inherent in the aprons themselves. The clear, bold, central images are beautiful in a traditional way and draw our unsuspecting attention to the content.

Certain prints investigate the association of hands with aprons. In some, for example Working Apron– clenching , the wearer of the apron loses all individual identity, as the wearer becomes the apron. The human hands reach desperately from the fabric of the apron to escape from its restrictions. The flesh like tonality of the prints enhances such imagery. In another the central apron motif seems to be presented by the hands to the viewer, while simultaneously they make a gesture of futility.

Despite the anguish implied, these prints are presented with the clean, restrained, almost suppressing formality which is familiar in Mary Rawlyk’s work. The new expression of content brings an added power to her printmaking.