ROSEMARY STRATCHEN
Exhibiting Sculpture
Inner Beauty
A salute to the beauty of nature.
Beauty surrounds us. Is inside us.
This installation is intended as a reminder of that beauty.
In 2020 I saw, for the first time, an MRI of a clitoris.
A glowing thanks to Dr Helen O’Connel, Melbourne Urological Surgeon and French gynaecologists Odile Buisson and Pierre Foldes for their ground breaking work.
I was fascinated and shocked. Fascinated by the beauty of a part of what is me, of what is part of every woman. Clitoris look like an orchid, a wishbone, a vertebra.
Here was something beautiful, natural. Shocked that as an educated, travelled, experienced woman of 49 I had never seen a clitoris before. Worse.. that I had never questioned why I had never seen one before. Sadly not that shocked that prior to Dr Helen O’Connel there was scant interest in the physicality of female sexuality.
This MRI makes me feel proud and lovely. Makes me feel more connected to all women. It inspired me to make an artwork to bring this beautiful part of us into the public view.
A celebration of our intrinsic beauty.
I feel an obligation to share this.
To share this connection I feel to all people and to our environment.
The literal mark I chose to make with this artwork is a fingerprint.
Mapped out in 2000 handmade clitori. As an installation artist, sculptor and painter much of my work consists of repetition. Pattern making. Meditations of nature’s patterns. I felt the fingerprint fitted this location at the Q Station.
Each clitoris is made from polymorph, a biodegradable plastic. My lofty dreams of bronze two foot tall clitori were transformed into much smaller plastic pieces. The whole process snd the end result have become much more intimate which seems only fitting.
Materials: Polymorph