This lithograph “Tied Up II” has been produced on the occasion of the exhibition « Tenderizer », which was on view at Galerie Maria Bernheim in Zürich last fall 2020.

The sensuality, humor, awkwardness, and grotesque qualities of femininity are encapsulated in the meager tampon string. This little tail is so banal, but also ridiculous, strange and particular to the female experience. Drawing out and expanding upon the string’s absurdity yields a particularly humorous potential: what if it was so long it could become entangled with a fellow tampon wearer? Hands become bound, bodies stuck together, and even more surreal, if the two ends were lit on fire, whose would burn first? The figure’s grace and sensuality are undercut by a feeling of repulsion and crude whimsy, emotional dualities that echo the feeling of living in a female body.