‘Engendered Reflections’ is an exploration into what percolates in the mind over a lifetime living in a patriarchal society. More specifically, it is the exquisite corpse of warring and contrasting values, ethics, culture and aesthetic pleasures developed over that lifetime. Using drag as a medium this work constructs a “gender theatre” of sorts in which to “put on” some of the many costumes of “woman”. My aim is that through playing these heightened “gender roles” in a theatrical context, I can interrogate my understanding of my own identity, as a queer woman in an age that is seeing a world with an ever loosening grip on inert gender binaries. Beyond intellectual scrutiny, ‘Engendered Reflections’ is in many ways an indulgence in the confounding glamour of tragic female archetypes. In this way, as a piece ‘Engendered Reflections’ embodies my own artistic struggles with aesthetic philosophy, and with the question: Why make art?
