Rotten Little Fruits

The analogy of women and fruit is a strong one: fertility, virginity, ripeness, sweetness—something that sustains and delights. A rotten little fruit is something that is sour, misshapen, shrinking, but powerful—an object doing something other than what it’s supposed to do—to be sweet, pleasurable, consumable. The dark, celebratory, and comical work of Christine Garvey and Bonnie Staley’s has a lot in common with the rotten little fruit—the outsider, problematic, misbehaving body. Both artists reference the history, anatomy, pains, and joys of the female body to create objects that operate in a space between traditional classifications of painting, drawing, and sculpture. Claiming an otherness between these formal distinctions further enhances the works’ power and autonomy. The diminutive “little fruit” suggests that despite all of this, these recalcitrant objects are nothing to be concerned with. The work says otherwise—it radiates its defiance and demands a closer look.