Poem of the Pillow opens at Frameless Gallery, London

FRAMELESS Gallery have just opened a new exhibition entitled Poem of the Pillow, which is a collaboration between emerging female artists Beatrice Lettice Boyle and Jessie Makinson. The exhibition has been curated by Kate Neave.

Installation shot of Poem of the Pillow curated by Kate Neave

The two artists, who have long been inspired by traditional Japanese erotic prints that give women active, rather than traditional passive, roles, have tried to use this exhibition to readdress a patriarchal past from a female perspective. In their multi-disciplinary work for this exhibition, Boyle and Makinson give sexual power to women and feature clearly feminised  sexualised references.

Beatrice Lettice Boyle, Throes (2017)

Jessie Makinson, King Creep (2017)

The exhibition’s title comes from a famous Japanese book of pictures of Shunga prints of the same name, Utamakura (歌まくら) in Japanese, written by Kitagawa Utamaro in 1788. There is a poem written on a fan in the picture which is particularly important in inspiring this exhibition. The poems reads as:

Its beak caught firmly

In the clam shell,

The snipe cannot

Fly away

Of an autumn evening.

by Allie Nawrat 

Poem of the Pillow is on from now until  November 4, 2017 from Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm. The exhibition is free to attend

Frameless Gallery, 20 Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0DP