WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME
It is not safe for women on land, and yet the male gaze and resulting pressure on our bodies has deterred so many women from leaping into the water.
Women have been written into the history of water very differently to our history on shore. Whilst we continue to fight for our equality on solid ground, fertility and creator goddesses rule the waters, as do the dangerous communities of women living without men; creatures of the deep with sinuous strength, invincible knowledge and the skill to sing sailors to sleep, removing all of their power. The ‘mystery’ of women is written, painted and sung into the mystery of water.
This featureless material, that we encounter every day, is the stuff of fantasy, of science fiction and myth. Water breaks every rule of chemistry. Science cannot explain why ice floats on water, why hot water freezes faster than cold or how water molecules can float upwards, defying gravity. For all of its fluidity, water is one of the main shaping agents of nature- water is a sculptor.
I remember holding a shell to my ear as a child and hearing the sea. It is now I learn that this noise was the sound of water and salt moving within me, the sound of the brine that keeps me alive. At birth we emerge from a womb of water, our bodies made up of 80% water. Water has many faces, it is always ready to adapt, create and transform. Water is present, responsive, curious and unpredictable. These characteristics of water are so recognisable in children. As I grow older and the moisture gradually leaves me, it is the fearless flexibility of water that I hope to withhold.
What the Water Gave Me presents a series of large scale wall works, an installation and photographs, guided in their making by the behaviour and properties of this enigmatic substance. Parts of the work stay afloat whilst others submerge, colours begin bright and darken as they drown into disappearance. An undulating splash moves through the exhibition. Water itself was integral in the making process; the works were taken into the sea and out into wet weather, the layered materials responding to breaking waves or the repetitive beat of rain. These works celebrate our wateriness. If we are not swimming, we are sinking.
Rosie Reed, b.1991, graduated with a BA in Fine Art from The Ruskin School of Art in 2013 and an MA in Sculpture from The Royal College of Art in 2017.
Recent solo and duo exhibitions include Tidy, Sothu, Zurich and The Grandmothers, Robert Young Antiques, London; Notes on Growth, Mo.CA, Brescia and Housekeeping, Garden Gallery, Los Angeles. Group shows include (Dis)embodied Burdens at Cooke Latham Gallery and Herland at Bosse & Baum. In 2018, Rosie founded The Amber Room, a programme of exhibitions that centre around a dinner, for which everything from the glassware to the cutlery and crockery is made by the artists exhibiting. The most recent Amber Room was at Reference Point Library in 180 The Strand, each of the sixty artists exhibiting made work in response to a book in the library’s collection. Rosie has curated two group exhibitions in London, Don't Touch Me at a disused office space on Notting Hill Gate and Flipside at Fold Gallery, both of which responded to feminist texts.
